The effects of lexicality, regularity, and consistency in L2 Chinese learners in delayed naming and lexicality judgment : an ERP study

Abstract

This study predominantly examined the regularity and consistency effects during word recognition with second language (L2) Chinese adult readers using event-related potentials (ERPs). Sixteen native alphabetic script readers learning Chinese as a late-acquired L2 with reading proficiency of Chinese reaching local Primary 4 level completed a lexical decision (LD) task and a delayed naming (DN) task. ERP results showed that effects of regularity occurred at P200 in LD and on right hemisphere only where irregular characters elicited greater positivity than regular characters. Null effects of consistency were noted in both LD and DN. This suggests that, in Chinese, regularity and consistency construct distinctly and operate under different mechanisms with different neural correlates. In addition, null phonological effects were observed in DN. The study also suggests that the access to phonological information from print is subject to task demands as well as reading proficiency. Besides, L2 Chinese readers followed a similar developmental ERP trajectory of native Chinese-speaking Grade 4 children and adopted an accommodation pattern in developing orthography-to-phonology knowledge in Chinese reading.