Orthography influences the perception and production of speech.

Abstract

One intriguing question in language research concerns the extent to which orthographic information impacts on spoken word processing. Previous research has faced a number of methodological difficulties and has not reached a definitive conclusion. Our research addresses these difficulties by capitalizing on recent developments in the area of word learning. Participants were trained to criterion on a set of associations between novel pictures and novel spoken words. Spellingsound consistent or inconsistent spellings were introduced on the second day, and the influence of these spellings on speech processing was assessed on the third day. Results showed for the first time significant orthographic effects on speech perception and speech production in a situation in which spelling-sound consistency was manipulated with perfect experimental control. Results are discussed in terms of a highly interactive language system in which there is a rapid and automatic flow of activation in both directions between orthographic and phonological representations. Orthography influences the perception 3It is often said that spoken language has primacy over written language. Before acquiring skills in reading and writing, most children have expertise in understanding and producing speech.Indeed, while we are born with the propensity to use spoken language, reading is a learned form of expertise. It is not surprising, then, that language subsystems supporting reading are often characterized as being parasitic on those supporting our spoken abilities (e.g. Pinker, 1997). In line with this characterisation, there is a broad consensus that our experience with the sounds of words (phonology) plays a powerful role in learning to read (e.g. Rayner et al., 2001) and in adult visual word processing (e.g. Rastle & Brysbaert, 2006).The question that has received less attention is whether our experience with the spellings of words (orthography) comes to influence our spoken abilities. Though inconsistent with the primacy model, an increasing body of literature suggests that speech perception may be shaped by information about the printed forms of words, and there is limited research suggesting that the same could be true of speech production. These data have raised the remarkable possibility that information about the

Orthography affects second language speech: Double letters and geminate production in English.

“…This study cannot explain the locus of orthographic effects, but it shows that orthographic effects differ between native and L2 speakers as follows. With regard to the locus of the effect, three explanations are possible: orthography affects phonological representations (Taft, 2006); phonological and orthographic representations are co-activated during speech production (Muneaux & Ziegler, 2004;Rastle et al, 2011); or both. If orthography affects phonological representations, the outcomes differ between native and L2 speakers, because only the latter recode L2 orthographic forms using L1 grapheme-phoneme correspondences.…”

“…The effect of orthography on L2 phonology must be understood for effective research into both L1 phonology and L2 phonological development. There is growing evidence that orthography affects L1 phonology (e.g., Rastle, McCormick, Bayliss, & Davis, 2011; but see e.g. Alario, Perre, Castel, & Ziegler, 2007).…”

Does learning to read shape verbal working memory?

“…Importantly, as spellings were not present when participants recalled the items, the boost observed in these studies must have come from the presence of spellings linked to pronunciations in memory. More subtle effects of spelling knowledge have also been reported in adults, with spelling regularity of novel spoken names (in which the initial phoneme could be spelled in a regular or irregular manner based on existing English spelling-sound relationships, e.g., /kIsp/ spelled <kisp> or <chisp>) influencing picture-naming latency in the learning of associations between these novel words and novel pictures (Rastle, McCormick, Bayliss, & Davis, 2011).…”

Orthography and Modality Influence Speech Production in Adults and Children

“…This orthographic interference occurs whether or not reading or spelling is a part of any given task. Therefore, even tasks that do not directly involve the printed word but are completed exclusively by listening or speaking may show evidence of the influence of the orthographic characteristics of the stimuli (e.g., Frith, 1998;Rastle, McCormick, Bayliss, & Davis, 2011). Orthographic knowledge involves rules for how a letter represents a speech sound, rules regarding permissible combinations of letters, and rules regarding positional and contextual letter constraints (Apel, 2011).…”