L2-Spell: The impact of orthography on second language word learning and processing – L2-Spell

Participants take part in one or more learning sessions and in one (or more) test sessions. Sessions take place on separate days, to allow for the consolidation of lexical knowledge associated with sleep (Dumay & Gaskell, 2007). During learning sessions, participants are presented with pictures of unknown objects and their names. They have to remember the associations between the two. The names are novel words from a language different from L1 of the participant and are pronounced by native speakers of that language. The conditions in which the novel word-picture associations are presented are manipulated. For instance, in our previous studies, half the words were presented in the spoken form only (Audio) and the other half with the spoken and orthographic forms (Audio-Ortho).
After the learning session(s), participants take part in a test session during which they are asked to perform several tasks. In some tasks, they are presented with pictures of the novel objects and have to produce the associated name (Picture naming). This task is used to assess performance in productive vocabulary learning as well as the phonological representations, indirectly represented by pronunciation. In another task, they are presented with pictures and spoken words, and must determine which picture maps onto the spoken word (Picture-word mapping). This task is used to assess performance in receptive vocabulary learning and spoken recognition processes. We also collect a sample of words produced in the participants’ native language, which allows us to assess the acoustic distance between the sounds produced in L1 and L2.

The resultts of the various experiments we have carried out are detailled in the attached document.

We are still collecting data and implementing the remaning experiments. This is detailled in the attached document.

Results were presented in national and international conferences:

Journées Phonologie du Français Contemporain. Paris. Novembre 2025.

Mental Lexicon 2025 in Montreal, Canada in June, 2025.

TeaP 2026 in Tübingen, Germany in March 2026.

Adult learners of a second language (L2) encounter new words by hearing them, reading them or both. In this project, we examine the influence of written orthographic input on L2 learning and processing. We will examine the impact of orthography on all aspects of L2 word learning : the ability to recognize words and associate them with their meanings, the ability to perceive phonemes, the ability to produce words that map onto the intended meaning, and the ability to build phonological representations and to accurately pronounce the words. The structure of our 3-year research project is threefold. In Work package 1, we will review the literature and perform meta-analyses of orthographic effects. In Work package 2, we will design experiments to specify the role orthographic input in L2 learning and processing to determine whether these effects: are specific to orthography or can be obtained with alternative coding, depend on the timing of orthographic input during learning, evolve over time, depend on the linguistic material, depend on how the orthographic form is experienced, depend on participants. In Work package 3, we will design experiments to understand the impact of orthographic information when orthography is not present in the input. We will examine whether learners generate orthographic representations of novel words that they have encountered only auditorily (have heard but not seen written) which in turn influence their pronunciation, whether differences in self-generated orthographic representations account for differences in performance in pronunciation and vocabulary learning across learners, and whether L2 speakers automatically activate their orthographic representations of words. This collaborative project builds on the earlier published work of the three scientific coordinators, who have worked together for many years. It benefits from the complementary expertise of the coordinators and other project participants, in psycholinguistics, phonetics and phonology, statistics, corpus linguistics, and second language pedagogy. On top of theoretical insights on understanding how literate speakers process new information and on understanding second language acquisition, this project, by its focus on the impact of orthography on second language learning, has major implications for educational programs.