Disentangling cross-language orthographic neighborhood from markedness effects in L2 visual word recognition

Previous research has reported that lexical access in bilinguals is language non-selective. In the present study, we explored the extent to which cross-language orthographic neighborhood size (N-size) effects, an index of language non-selectivity, should be dissociated from markedness effects, a sub-lexical orthographic variable referring to the degree of language- shared (unmarked) versus specific (marked) orthography. Two proficiency groups of French/English bilinguals performed an English (L2) lexical decision task with three word and non-word conditions: (1) English words with large French N-size/unmarked orthography (price), (2) small French N-size/unmarked orthography (drive), and (3) small French N-size/marked orthography (write). Evidence was found for orthographic markedness effects, albeit with a different pattern for word and non-word processing: while marked words were facilitated (responded to faster and more accurately) compared to unmarked words, the opposite pattern emerged for non-words. The pattern of results was comparable in both proficiency groups. No evidence emerged for the influence of first language (L1) neighborhood on L2 word or non-word processing. Thus, the results emphasize the need to integrate orthographic markedness as a relevant psycholinguistic variable in bilingual models of visual word recognition such as BIA/+ and to take it into account when investigating cross- language effects and the issue of language non-selectivity during visual word recognition.