Mousikou Petroula, Beyersmann Elisabeth, Ktori Maria, Javourey-Drevet Ludivine, Crepaldi Davide, Ziegler Johannes C, Grainger Jonathan, Schroeder Sascha
Max Planck Institute for Human Development (MPIB), Berlin, Germany.
Department of Educational Psychology, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany.
Dev Sci. 2020 Nov;23(6):e12952. doi: 10.1111/desc.12952. Epub 2020 Mar 12.
The present study investigated whether morphological processing in reading is influenced by the orthographic consistency of a language or its morphological complexity. Developing readers in Grade 3 and skilled adult readers participated in a reading aloud task in four alphabetic orthographies (English, French, German, Italian), which differ in terms of both orthographic consistency and morphological complexity. English is the least consistent, in terms of its spelling-to-sound relationships, as well as the most morphologically sparse, compared to the other three. Two opposing hypotheses were formulated. If orthographic consistency modulated the use of morphology in reading, readers of English should show more robust morphological processing than readers of the other three languages, because morphological units increase the reliability of spelling-to-sound mappings in the English language. In contrast, if the use of morphology in reading depended on the morphological complexity of a language, readers of French, German, and Italian should process morphological units in printed letter strings more efficiently than readers of English. Both developing and skilled readers of English showed greater morphological processing than readers of the other three languages. These results support the idea that the orthographic consistency of a language, rather than its morphological complexity, influences the extent to which morphology is used during reading. We explain our findings within the remit of extant theories of reading acquisition and outline their theoretical and educational implications.
本研究调查了阅读中的形态加工是否受一种语言的正字法一致性或其形态复杂性的影响。三年级的发展中读者和熟练的成年读者参与了一项朗读任务，该任务涉及四种字母文字（英语、法语、德语、意大利语），这四种语言在正字法一致性和形态复杂性方面均存在差异。就拼写与发音的关系而言，英语的一致性最差，与其他三种语言相比，其形态也最为稀少。由此提出了两种相反的假设。如果正字法一致性调节了阅读中形态学的运用，那么英语读者应该比其他三种语言的读者表现出更强的形态加工能力，因为形态单位增加了英语中拼写与发音映射的可靠性。相反，如果阅读中形态学的运用取决于一种语言的形态复杂性，那么法语、德语和意大利语的读者应该比英语读者更有效地处理印刷字母串中的形态单位。无论是发展中读者还是熟练读者，英语读者都比其他三种语言的读者表现出更强的形态加工能力。这些结果支持了这样一种观点，即一种语言的正字法一致性而非其形态复杂性，会影响阅读过程中形态学的运用程度。我们在现有阅读习得理论的范围内解释了我们的发现，并概述了它们的理论和教育意义。
