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

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 July 2021

Kelly Nisbet Open the ORCID record for Kelly Nisbet [Opens in a new window] ,
Raymond Bertram ,
Charlotte Erlinghagen ,
Aleks Pieczykolan  and
Victor Kuperman Open the ORCID record for Victor Kuperman [Opens in a new window]
Kelly Nisbet*
Affiliation:
McMaster University
Raymond Bertram
Affiliation:
University of Turku
Charlotte Erlinghagen
Affiliation:
University of Würzburg
Aleks Pieczykolan
Affiliation:
University of Würzburg
Victor Kuperman
Affiliation:
McMaster University
*
*Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Kelly Nisbet, Department of Linguistics and Languages, McMaster University, 1280 Main Street West, Hamilton, ON, L8S 4L8, Canada. E-mail: nisbetk@mcmaster.ca
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Abstract

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.

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Research Article
Information
Studies in Second Language Acquisition , Volume 44 , Issue 2 , May 2022 , pp. 407 - 434
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© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

The experiment in this article earned an Open Data badge for transparent practices. The materials are available at https://osf.io/ex9fj/

References

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