Illinois Mobile App Master Calendar

Join us for this exciting entry in the Linguistics Seminar Series!

• Talk Title: Written Language as a Window into (L2) Literacy
• Abstract: Modern approaches to linguistics often take speech as the primary object of study, with consideration of written forms themselves being relegated to a secondary status (Householder, 1969). Recent years, however, have seen increasing interest in examining writing systems and written language forms. In this talk I will provide an overview of the structure and variations of the writing systems employed by the world’s languages, along with the ways that the characteristics of written language correspond to and influence linguistic structures, literacy, and literacy development. Then, highlighting data from my own research, I will show how L1 literacy experiences shape second language (L2) literacy development. These data come from studies using eye-tracking, masked orthographic priming, spelling judgments, and spelling to dictation. For the last, I will demonstrate how a detailed analysis of written misspellings can provide insight into learners’ developing L2 linguistic system. I will end with some examples from others’ research illustrating how L1 and L2 literacy can also influence other aspects of L2 skills, including speech processing, vocabulary learning, writing fluency, and even affective dimensions of language learning. In sum, I argue that writing, and a consideration of written forms, constitute a valuable focus for linguistic and second language research.