Stephanie-- are you familiar with the work of Keiko Koda and her extensive studies into the impact of first language literacy on second language reading????? Her book, 'Insights into Second Language Reading: A Cross Linguistic Approach" (Cambridge University Press, 2004) is a must-have for your inquiry.? It is the culmination of two decades of research to show that for a reader literate in L1 (or the dominant language, since it isn't always L1) ALL reading processes are first accessed through the first (dominant) language.? For example, Koda's studies, and subsequently many others, have shown that being highly competent in reading one orthography does not assure ready transfer of that skill to a new orthography, despite fully developed phonological skills, because the visual processing is different from orthography to orthography, even when they use pretty much the same alphabet (and especially when they don't).? This has mostly to do with how available both phonological and semantic information are on the surface of a language.?? Thus how a reader literate in one language may read in the other language is impacted by how the first language is written (how the written code relates to the sound system of the language or, in the case of Chinese, what phonological information is associated with meaning), the order of words in sentences, the organization of text in that language etc. ? 

And then the lead article in the 2006 Annals of Dyslexia on Language and The Brain ( Barbro Johanssen) provides the neuroscientific view of how reading changes the brain and how reading/ processing is, sometimes, language-specific in certain functions of the brain.? Thus when you look at how a learner's first language literacy impacts their second/other language proficiency, there are many factors to consider. 

If I read your question correctly, you appear to be looking into how first language literacy impacts second language literacy, not how first language of a non-literate learner impacts literacy in second language, is that right??? The latter process is much less studied at this point.? We could make some predictions, but almost no one has studied the actual impact of L1 oracy on L2 literacy.? 

Robin Lovrien Schwarz
 

 

 




robinschwarz1 at aol.com



 

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