Phonological processing

2.1.1. The importance of phonological decoding in L1 reading

Research points to the signifi cant role that this component plays in L1 reading.

It seems that phonological decoding facilitates information storage in work-ing memory. Research, e.g., Gough (1975), indicates that changwork-ing print into its phonological form enables eff ective access to oral vocabulary, which is stored in phonological forms. Phonological decoding was found fundamental in both alphabetic languages, e.g., English and non-alphabetic ones, such as Chinese and Japanese (e.g., Perfetti and Zhang 1995). In research which compared the role of phonological competence and visual encoding in retaining visually presented material (e.g., Zhang and Simon 1985), phonological transformation was found a more facilitative factor. As regards reading, it was observed that competence in pronouncing printed words is a reliable predictor of early reading success (e.g., Share and Stanovich 1995). Th e importance of phonological processing in word reading was confi rmed in a series of studies conducted by Breznitz and Berman (2003). Investigation of the rate reading of young and adult readers of English as L1 showed the diff erence between the two groups. Among the young readers word reading rate related to phonological processing at the phoneme level; while among the adult readers word reading rate related to phonological processing at the word level. However, across all the subjects word reading rate was found to relate more to auditory-phonological processing than to visual-orthographic processing.

2.1.2. Phonological processing in different orthographic systems

Writing systems can be divided into two categories: shallow and deep orthographies (Koda 2005). What distinguishes the two types of orthography is orthographic depth, which refers to the degree of regularity in symbol-sound correspondences.

In shallow orthographies, such as Spanish, Serbo-Croatian and Polish, the symbol-sound correspondences are very regular. Readers follow a phonologically regular system with a highly consistent set of grapheme-to-phoneme correspondences.

Deep orthographies, such as English, have a phonologically deep system; “while governed by phonemic constraints” they tend “to preserve morphological informa-tion at the expense of phonological transparency” (Koda 2005: 36). A good example of this tendency is the past tense morpheme “-ed,” which can be pronounced in three diff erent ways, as in “looked,” “visited” and “played.” While violating one-to-one symbol-sound correspondences, it refl ects its underlying morphological information.

Th e Orthographic Depth Hypothesis, proposed by Katz and Frost (1992), may serve as a summary of the above discussion concerning diff erent ways of decoding. Th e hypothesis claims that phonological decoding in reading depends on letter-sound correspondences. In shallow, sound-based orthographies (e.g.,

Polish), phonological decoding involves letter-by-letter, letter-to-sound translation, i.e., by a direct analysis of phonetic elements. By contrast, in deep, meaning-based orthographies, phonological decoding (obtaining lexical sounds) takes place only after a word has been identifi ed, e.g., by means of memory search or associations.

In other words, in shallow orthographies, reading is facilitated by rule-based, thus predictable, procedures; whereas in deep orthographies, it means retrieving particu-lar words from lexical memory. Th e hypothesis was confi rmed by Frost, Katz and Bentin (1987) in their experiments involving Hebrew (deepest), English (deep) and Serbo-Croatian (shallow) writing systems.

2.1.3. Phonological processes in reading English as L1 and Polish as L1

As regards the English language, it is useful to discuss an interesting division sug-gested by Baron and Strawson (1976, cited in Schmitt and McCarthy 2000), who divide readers in English into two groups which they call “Chinese” and “Phone-cian.” Th e Chinese group uses a logographic approach and, relying on lexical de-coding, recognizes words as whole units. Such readers are good at lexical reading and transforming symbols into words (e.g., transforming $2 into “two dollars”), but poor at orthographic processing. Th e Phonecian readers use orthographic processing, which involves following “sound-to-spelling” rules, a strategy useful for a language with regular orthography, but not helpful in reading words that do not follow the expected “sound-to-spelling” rules. Th e researchers claim that reading English, which is an orthographically irregular language, involes em-ploying a system combining both strategies, which will enable readers to read both regular and irregular words. Research (e.g., Bradley and Bryant 1979, cited in Sochacka 2004: 90) showed that English children use logographic strategies when they begin to read and alphabetic strategies when they begin to write. An interesting observation is that because of the deep phonological system of English, letter-to-sound strategies do not allow beginner readers to understand irregular words.

Th e study described below allows us to understand the diff erences between a phonological stage in reading in Polish and that in English. Sochacka (2004) wanted to observe the development of reading in L1 Polish children and compare it with the stages suggested in Frith’s (1985) model of reading development, which often serves as a universal model to characterize the development of reading in various languages. Th e model suggests three stages: logographic, alphabetic and orthographic. Th e logographic stage involves recognising words in print by looking for features of the words that are somehow “salient,” e.g., the last letter of the word.

Once recognised, the word is connected with the visual semantic system and then with the verbal semantic system, which in consequence leads to sounding out the word. At the alphabetic stage, the reader begins to decode a word by sounding it out to him/herself. His/her phonological awareness (see Note 1) enables him/her to map letters to sounds. Letter-to-sound reading helps the child to “attack” un-known and artifi cial words. At the last orthographic stage, the child can recognise

words by using the features of orthography of his/her language. Th ere is no need to convert graphemes into phonemes. Due to a development of morphosyntactic awareness, the reader is able to recognise clusters of letters and, without sounding out letters, to read words. At this stage, the reader becomes more competent and can select phonological or logographic strategies depending on the situation. Frith (1985) argues that the reader can enter the last orthographic stage only after suc-cessful completion of the fi rst two stages.

Th e most important conclusion Sochacka (2004) drew from her study was that Frith’s model does not refl ect the development of Polish children’s read-ing. It was the alphabetic strategy, i.e., decoding words letter by letter, that prevailed throughout the two-year study. However, over time the children de-veloped a holistic approach to words; by synthesising all letters in words, they learned to read the whole words. Th e development proceeded from the phono-logical strategy to the lexical one. When applying the holistic strategy, the chil-dren did not rely only on visual semantic mechanisms, as suggested by Frith’s logographic stage. Th e readers connected letters with sounds, which is the ability they had acquired at the earlier stage. Th e lexical strategy, i.e., connecting letters with sounds, helped the children to memorise words as a combination of ele-ments. In other words, they drew on both their visual abilities and phonological awareness.

2.1.4. Cross-linguistic variations: The infl uence of L1 orthographic background on FL/L2 reading

Comparative research underlines the role of L1 print-processing experience in FL/

L2 reading, suggesting that readers bring to FL/L2 reading a set of language skill processes specifi c to their L1. Below, a selection of such studies is presented.

Th e research into young learners’ reading points to transfer between two lan-guages. In the study of Chinese bilingual kindergarden learners, Chang and Watson (1988) found out that the children transferred what they knew about reading in English to their Chinese. When investigating Turkish children learning Dutch as L2, Verhoeven (1994) observed transfer between the two languages in both directions.

Th e studies into adults’ reading bring similar results. Koda (1989) investigated FL learners of Japanese with a logographic and alphabetic L1 background, focuss-ing on the eff ect of L1–L2 orthographic distance on word recognition and text comprehension. Th e logographic group outperformed the alphabetic group at all word recognition tasks; all word recognition results correlated positively with reading comprehension scores. Th e longitudinal observation confi rmed a diff er-ence in performance between the two groups and over time this gap increased.

Interestingly, research suggests that L1 reading skills may have a facilitative or debilitative impact on reading in FL. Suarez and Meara (1989) observed that their Spanish subjects applied a phonological “sound-to-spelling” system when reading irregular words in English, the approach appropriate to Spanish but inappropriate to

English. On the other hand, Koda (1988) found that Japanese readers’ performance, unlike that of the Arabic and Spanish subjects, was similar to that of the English-speaking readers and that this similarity seemed to help Japanese readers in reading in English.

In a contrastive study, Kurcz and Polkowska (1990) investigated how Polish and American students processed texts written in their native language in a reading aloud task. Th e subjects read three parts of the text; after each part they stopped to summarise what they had read. Several sentences were distorted in the text at the orthographic, lexical, syntactic and semantic levels. Th e results revealed sig-nifi cant diff erences between the two groups. Th e Polish readers focussed more on word endings; whereas the American readers concentrated on sentence integra-tion, “gathering information across a broader span of words” (Kurcz and Polkowska 1990: 202). Th e fi ndings confi rmed the researchers’ hypothesis that the reader’s native language infl uences the reading process, which may be due to diff erences between the languages at the orthographic level.

To sum up, it seems that comparative studies of FL/L2 reading clearly point to the undeniable long lasting infl uence of the L1 orthographic background on FL/L2 reading. Diff erences between the orthographies of the two languages require from the reader adjusting his/her processing skills to the demands of the new writing system. Th is explains why Polish learners may experience diffi culty in approaching English words; they would process English words in the way they do it in their native language, i.e., using a phonological “sound-to-spelling” strategy.