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Reading between the words: The effect of literacy on second language lexical segmentation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 May 2016

NAOMI HAVRON  and
INBAL ARNON
NAOMI HAVRON*
Affiliation:
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
INBAL ARNON
Affiliation:
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
*
ADDRESS FOR CORRESPONDENCE Naomi Havron, Department of Psychology, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mount Scopus, Jerusalem 91905, Israel. E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

There is evidence that the ability to segment an utterance into words improves with literacy, yet previous research makes it difficult to disentangle the effect of literacy from that of age or cognitive abilities. We tested the hypothesis that literacy increases lexical segmentation in a second language in a unique sample of adult illiterates learning to read in their second language, controlling for cognitive abilities and using a task that taps language processing rather than only metalinguistic awareness. Participants’ segmentation was correlated with first language reading at the beginning of an intensive literacy course for illiterate adults. At the end of the course, those learning to read for the first time benefited more in terms of their segmentation abilities. We discuss implications for models of second language learning.

Type
Articles
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 38 , Issue 1 , January 2017 , pp. 127 - 153
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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