The Development of Visual Word Recognition in German Bilinguals

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The Development of Visual Word Recognition in German Bilinguals Fachbereich Erziehungswissenschaft und Psychologie der Freien Universität Berlin The Development of Visual Word Recognition in German Bilinguals Dissertation zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades Doktor der Philosophie (Dr. phil.) Vorgelegt von M.Ed., B.A. Pauline Schröter Berlin, 2016 Supervised by Prof. Dr. Martin Brunner Professor, Department of Education and Psychology, Freie Universität Berlin Head, Institute for School Quality Improvement (ISQ) PD Dr. Sascha Schroeder Docent, Department of Education and Psychology, Freie Universität Berlin Head, Max Planck Research Group “Reading Education and Development” (REaD) Defense at Freie Universität Berlin on September 6, 2016 für Opa i Contents ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Contents Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................... iv Summary ..................................................................................................................................... vi Zusammenfassung .................................................................................................................... viii CHAPTER 1 Introduction 1. The notion of bilingualism .................................................................................................... 3 2. Advantages and disadvantages of being bilingual ............................................................... 4 2.1 Cognitive skills ............................................................................................................. 5 2.2 Linguistic skills ............................................................................................................. 7 3. Models of bilingual word recognition .................................................................................. 9 4. Motivation for this dissertation .......................................................................................... 14 5. Aims of the studies .............................................................................................................. 17 5.1 Study 1 ....................................................................................................................... 17 5.2 Study 2 ....................................................................................................................... 18 5.3 Study 3 ....................................................................................................................... 19 5.4 Study 4 ....................................................................................................................... 20 CHAPTER 2 The Impact of L2 German on Component Processes of Reading (Study 1) Abstract .............................................................................................................................. 23 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 24 Method ................................................................................................................................ 29 Results and Discussion ......................................................................................................... 34 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................ 39 References ........................................................................................................................... 42 CHAPTER 3 Differences in Visual Word Recognition between L1 and L2: The Impact of Frequency, Length, and Orthographic Neighborhood Size in German Speaking Children (Study 2) Abstract .............................................................................................................................. 47 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 48 Method ................................................................................................................................ 54 Results .................................................................................................................................. 57 Discussion ............................................................................................................................. 64 References ........................................................................................................................... 70 Contents ii ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ CHAPTER 4 Orthographic Processing in Balanced Bilingual Children: Cross-Language Evidence from Cognates and False Friends (Study 3) Abstract .............................................................................................................................. 75 Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 76 Method ............................................................................................................................... 79 Results ................................................................................................................................. 82 Discussion ............................................................................................................................ 83 References .......................................................................................................................... 86 Appendix ............................................................................................................................. 88 CHAPTER 5 Exploring Early Language Detection in Balanced Bilingual Children: The Impact of Language- Specificity on Cross-Linguistic Nonword Recognition (Study 4) Abstract .............................................................................................................................. 91 Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 92 Method ............................................................................................................................... 96 Results ................................................................................................................................. 99 Discussion .......................................................................................................................... 101 References ........................................................................................................................ 103 Appendix ........................................................................................................................... 106 CHAPTER 6 General discussion 1. Summary of the results ...................................................................................................... 109 1.1 Developmental trajectories of reading in L1 and L2 speakers ................................ 109 1.1.1 Differences in component processes of reading .......................................... 109 1.1.2 The effect of reading-relevant factors ......................................................... 111 1.1.3 The impact of linguistic characteristics ........................................................ 112 1.2 The development of the bilingual lexicon ............................................................... 114 1.2.1 Parallel language activation ........................................................................ 114 1.2.2 Language membership detection ................................................................. 116 2. Conclusions ........................................................................................................................ 117 3. Limitations and final remarks ............................................................................................ 120 References ............................................................................................................................... 125 Declaration .............................................................................................................................. 133 Appendix .................................................................................................................................. 135 Acknowledgements iv ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Acknowledgements Completing this dissertation has been one of the most challenging and ultimately most stimulating endeavors of my life (so far). Needless to say, I would not have made it to this point without the support of numerous people, who I would like to address in the following.
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