Recently researchers have become increasingly interested in the influence of orthographic forms on second language (L2) phonology. Orthographic forms (or spellings) represent the sounds and words of a language in writing. L2 learners, in particular those in instructed settings, are simultaneously exposed to the orthographic forms and the phonological forms of the target language. Recent investigations have indicated that orthographic input can affect learners’ phonological development and word learning in their second language in various ways. The availability of L2 orthographic forms in the input to L2 learners can facilitate speech production, perception, and/or word form learning (Escudero, Hayes-Harb, & Mitterer, 2008; Showalter & Hayes-Harb, 2013). It can hinder targetlike acquisition (Bassetti, 2007; Hayes-Harb, Nicol, & Barker, 2010), or it can have mixed effects or no effect at all (Escudero & Wanrooij, 2010; Simon, Chamblessb, & Alvesc, 2010).

Some previous studies have shown that the availability of orthographic information leads to positive effects for second language (L2) phonology, while others document negative effects. In this paper, we examine the role of orthography on novel spoken-word learning by comparing word pairs that differed in most or all of their segments (nonminimal pairs) and those that only differed in one phoneme (minimal pairs) that was considered easy or difficult to discriminate. We tested the performance of learners whose native languages have transparent orthographies as well as learners with opaque orthographies. Our findings show that regardless of linguistic background and native orthographic system, availability of orthographic information during word learning did not have an effect on nonminimal pairs or perceptually easy minimal pairs. However, it had a positive effect on two minimal pairs that had the highest accuracy among the seven perceptually difficult ones, indicating that orthography only helped contrasts that were relatively easy to discriminate. The implications of these findings for L2 teaching and for future directions within L2 phonology are discussed.

Recent research has indicated that learners exposed to second language words’ orthographic forms of words can often use this information to make inferences about the words’ phonological forms. Here we asked, do learners benefit even when the orthography is unfamiliar? We taught native English speakers minimal nonword pairs differentiated by the Arabic velar–uvular contrast (e.g., [kubu], [qubu]) and manipulated the quality of orthographic input. We found that participants were consistently unable to associate the novel phonemes with novel words. Results are discussed in terms of (a) the role of orthographic input in second language word form learning, (b) the influence of orthographic familiarity in moderating the role of orthographic input, and (c) the issue of talker variability in word learning.

There is growing evidence that exposure to orthographic input affects second language phonological acquisition. This study examined the effects of auditory–orthographic interactions on second language assibilated/fricative rhotic productions of 20 naive English speakers of Spanish, with an acoustic–phonetic approach. The participants were assigned to two groups: auditory-only and auditory–orthographic. The results were indicative of a higher rate of both assibilated/fricative rhotics and approximant rhotics in the auditory–orthographic group. In addition, there was evidence that the acoustic input modulated the orthographic effects. However, the auditory-only group produced a higher rate of postalveolar sibilants. These results will be discussed in terms of (a) the salience-enhancing effect of the grapheme <r> and (b) the overriding effect of orthography.

In spite of burgeoning evidence that the orthographic forms (“spellings”) of second language (L2) words affect L2 learners’ pronunciation, little is known about the pronunciation of known words in experienced learners. In a series of four studies, we investigated various orthographic effects on the pronunciation of L2 English words in instructed learners with 10 years’ experience of learning English. Participants were native users of the phonologically transparent Italian writing system. Study 1 investigated the pronunciation of “silent letters,” using a word-reading task and a word-repetition task. Study 2 examined the effects of vowel spelling on vowel duration, namely, whether L2 speakers produce the same target vowel as longer when it is spelled with a vowel digraph than with a singleton letter. Study 3 explored the effects of the morphemic spelling of the past tense marker <ed> using a verb paradigm-production task. Study 4 tested whether L2 speakers produce homophonic words differently when they are spelled differently. Results confirmed that orthographic forms affect experienced instructed learners’ pronunciation of known words, albeit less so in immediate word repetition than in reading-aloud tasks.

A yearlong study of the acquisition of German by three American secondary school students reveals influence of orthographic input on their segmental development in phonology. The three had not been exposed to German prior to the year they spent in Germany, they received little explicit instruction on German, and they were the only native English speakers in their communities. Examination of their production of word-initial <s>, which is realized as [z] in German but [s] in English, points to influence of the orthographic input they received while interacting with written text as fully matriculated students in German secondary schools. Despite considerable aural input from their standard German-speaking peers, teachers, and host family members over the 12 months of their stay in Germany, the three learners’ production of word-initial <s> was typically [s]. Finer-grained analysis using Praat shows variation in voicing, suggesting these learners were also responding to the aural input.

Orthographies encode phonological information only at the level of words (chiefly, the information encoded concerns phonetic segments; in some cases, tonal information or default stress may be encoded). Of primary interest to second language (L2) learners is whether orthography can assist in clarifying L2 phonological distinctions that are particularly difficult to perceive (e.g., where one native-language phonemic category captures two L2 categories). A review of spoken-word recognition evidence suggests that orthographic information can install knowledge of such a distinction in lexical representations but that this does not affect learners’ ability to perceive the phonemic distinction in speech. Words containing the difficult phonemes become even harder for L2 listeners to recognize, because perception maps less accurately to lexical content.