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Cross-linguistic transfer in bilingual reading is item specific

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 April 2021

Marie Lallier Open the ORCID record for Marie Lallier [Opens in a new window] ,
Clara D. Martin ,
Joana Acha  and
Manuel Carreiras
Marie Lallier*
Affiliation:
Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language, San Sebastián, Spain
Clara D. Martin
Affiliation:
Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language, San Sebastián, Spain Ikerbasque, Basque Foundation for Science, Bilbao, Spain
Joana Acha
Affiliation:
Departamento Psicología básica, UPV/EHU, San Sebastián, Spain Biodonostia. Health Research Institute.San Sebastián, Spain
Manuel Carreiras
Affiliation:
Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language, San Sebastián, Spain Ikerbasque, Basque Foundation for Science, Bilbao, Spain Departamento de Lengua Vasca y Comunicación, UPV/EHU, Bilbao, Spain
*
Address for correspondence: Marie Lallier, E-mail: m.lallier@bcbl.eu, Basque Center on Cognition Brain and Language, Paseo Mikeletegi 69, 20009 Donostia-San Sebastián, Spain
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Abstract

The grain size of orthographic representations prompted by a consistent orthography (like Spanish or Basque) increases if reading is simultaneously learned in another language with an inconsistent orthography (like French). Here, we aimed to identify item properties that trigger this grain-size accommodation in bilingual reading. Twenty-five French–Basque and 25 Spanish–Basque bilingual children attending Grade 3 read Basque words and pseudowords containing “complex” letter clusters mapping to one sound in French but several sounds in Basque or Spanish, and “simple” letter clusters mapping to the same sound structure in all three languages. Only French speaking children read “complex” Basque words faster than “simple” ones, suggesting that they accessed multi-letter “French” units to boost lexical processing. A negative complexity effect was found for pseudowords across groups. We discuss the existence of flexible cross-linguistic transfer in bilingual reading, proposing that the grain size of orthographic representations adjusts to item-specific characteristics during reading.

Keywords

bilingualismreadingcross-linguistic transfergrain size
Type
Research Article
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 24 , Issue 5 , November 2021 , pp. 891 - 901
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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