QUANTIFYING THE DIFFERENCE IN READING FLUENCY BETWEEN L1 AND L2 READERS OF ENGLISH

• Published in: Studies in second language acquisition Vol. 44; no. 2; pp. 407 - 434
• Main Authors: Nisbet, Kelly, Bertram, Raymond, Erlinghagen, Charlotte, Pieczykolan, Aleks, Kuperman, Victor
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York, USA Cambridge University Press 01.05.2022
• Subjects: Educational Practices; English (Second Language); English as a second language; English language; Finnish language; Finno Ugric Languages; Fluency; Foreign Countries; German; German language; Language Classification; Language Skills; Linguistic distance; Native Language; Native speakers; Nonnative speakers; Reading; Reading Comprehension; Reading Fluency; Reading rate; Research Article; Second Language Learning; Second language reading; Spelling; Thinking Skills; Transfer of Training; Undergraduate Students; Canada
• ISSN: 0272-2631; 1470-1545
• DOI: 10.1017/S0272263121000279

This study is a comparative examination of reading behavior of first-language (L1) Canadian and second-language (L2) Finnish and German readers of English. We measured eye-movement patterns during reading the same set of English sentences and administered tests of English vocabulary, spelling, and exposure to print. The core of our study is a novel method of statistical prediction used to generate hypothetical Finnish and German participants with maximum observed L1 scores in all component skills. We found that with L1-like component skills, hypothetical German readers can show the same reading speed as the L1 group. We hypothesize this advantage comes from the small linguistic distance to English. Conversely, hypothetical Finnish readers remain disadvantaged even with maximum component skills, likely due to a larger linguistic distance. We discuss theoretical and applied implications of our method for L2 acquisition research.