Department of Languages, King Abdulaziz Military Academy, Riyadh, 11583, Saudi Arabia.
Cogn Process. 2021 Feb;22(1):37-46. doi: 10.1007/s10339-020-00989-1. Epub 2020 Aug 30.
Reading in a foreign language is one of the key defining aspects of successful L2 acquisition. However, research has repeatedly suggested that Arabic-speaking learners of EFL expend a great deal of their reading time in phonologically decoding words letter-by-letter before they are able to access their meanings. To further our understanding of this unique reading difficulty, this study investigated the relationship between the phonological and orthographic lexicons and L2 reading speed among 82 native Arabic learners of EFL. Two measures tapping aural and written modalities of vocabulary knowledge, and a measure of reading speed were administered to the participants. The results showed that phonological vocabulary knowledge correlated more strongly with L2 reading speed (r = .61) than did orthographic vocabulary knowledge (r = .32). Regression modeling also showed that only phonological vocabulary knowledge was able to explain unique variance in learners' L2 reading speed (R = .37). The findings indicate that Arabic-speaking EFL learners do in fact depend greatly on their L2 phonological lexicon when processing English written text. The discussion addresses the importance of developing an orthographic lexicon of suitable size in L2 learners in order to read efficiently in English.
阅读外语是成功学习第二语言的关键特征之一。然而，研究反复表明，阿拉伯语为母语的英语作为外语的学习者在能够理解词义之前，需要大量的时间通过逐个字母的语音解码来阅读单词。为了进一步了解这种独特的阅读困难，本研究调查了 82 名以阿拉伯语为母语的英语作为外语学习者的语音和正字法词汇之间的关系，以及他们的第二语言阅读速度。向参与者提供了两个词汇知识的听说模态测试和一个阅读速度测试。结果表明，语音词汇知识与第二语言阅读速度的相关性更强（r=0.61），而正字法词汇知识的相关性较弱（r=0.32）。回归模型还表明，只有语音词汇知识能够解释学习者第二语言阅读速度的独特差异（R=0.37）。研究结果表明，阿拉伯语为母语的英语作为外语的学习者在处理英语书面文本时确实非常依赖他们的第二语言语音词汇。讨论强调了为了在英语阅读中高效阅读，培养第二语言学习者合适大小的正字法词汇的重要性。
