Bene Bassetti

Università degli Studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia | UNIMO · Department of Education and Humanities

Orthographic forms (spellings) can affect pronunciation in a second language (L2); however, it is not known whether the same orthographic form can affect both L2 pronunciation and metalinguistic awareness. To test this, we asked 260 speakers of English—first‐language (L1) English speakers, L1 Italian and L2 English sequential bilinguals, and L1 Ita...

Aims: This article reviews recent research on the relationship between language and thinking in bilinguals. Approach: The paper reviews aspects of previous research, and links it to the articles in this special issue. Conclusions: Research on language and cognition in bilinguals requires both depth (in-depth investigations of one area in order t...

Aims and objectives This exploratory study investigates experiences and perceptions of Sanskrit language learning in Western non-heritage learners by analysing their language learning narratives. Methodology Sanskrit language learning narratives were elicited through unstructured interviews. Data and analysis Four Italian adults at a Sanskrit lan...

This chapter reviews evidence that the orthographic forms (spellings) of second language (L2) sounds and words affect L2 phonological representation and processing. It argues the following points (for detailed discussion, see below). Orthographic effects (OEs) are found in five realms: Speech perception, speech production, phonological awareness, p...

To appear in S. Pilhaja and H. Ringrow (Eds.) The Routledge handbook of language and religion. Routledge.

The orthographic forms (spellings) of second language (L2) words and sounds affect the pronunciation and awareness of L2 sounds, even after lengthy naturalistic exposure. This study investigated whether instruction could reduce the effects of English orthographic forms on Italian native speakers’ pronunciation and awareness of L2 English sounds. It...

ItalianL1 speakers of EnglishL2 produce the same English sound as longer if spelled with two than with one letter, following Italian grapheme-phoneme conversion rules. Do Italian listeners perceive short and long sounds in English homophonic word pairs that are spelled with a single letter or a digraph (finish-Finnish; morning-mourning)? In Experim...

Aims No recent studies have investigated language effects on counterfactual reasoning in bilinguals. This paper investigates the impact of bilinguals’ native language and language of testing on counterfactual reasoning, addressing two questions: (1) Do older Chinese reasoners, educated before English became a school subject, draw different inferenc...

The orthographic forms of words (spellings) can affect word production in speakers of second languages. This study tested whether presenting orthographic forms during L2 word learning can lead speakers to learn non-nativelike phonological forms of L2 words, as reflected in production and metalinguistic awareness. Italian L1 learners of English as a...

There is growing evidence that the orthographic forms (spellings) of second language words affect second language (L2) speech production, but it is not known whether orthography affects L2 phonology in native users of a non-alphabetic writing system. To answer this question, this study tested the effects of number of letters on the duration of cons...

Bassetti, Sokolović-Perović, Mairano, & Cerni (2018, online first) Orthography-induced length contrasts in the second language phonological systems of L2 speakers of English: Evidence from minimal pairs. Language and Speech. Abstract Research shows that the orthographic forms ('spellings') of second language (L2) words affect speech production in L...

Calendar calculations-e.g., calculating the nth month after a certain month-are an important component of temporal cognition, and can vary cross-linguistically. English speakers rely on a verbal list representation-processing system. Chinese speakers-whose calendar terms are numerically transparent-rely on a more efficient numerical system. Does kn...

Second languages (L2s) are often learned through spoken and written input, and L2 orthographic forms (spellings) can lead to non-native-like pronunciation. The present study investigated whether orthography can lead experienced learners of EnglishL2 to make a phonological contrast in their speech production that does not exist in English. Double co...

Interword spacing facilitates English native readers but not native readers of Chinese, a writing system that does not mark word boundaries. L1-English readers of Chinese as a Second Language (CSL) could then be facilitated if spacing is added between words in Chinese materials. However, previous studies produced inconsistent results. This study te...

Aims and objectives/purpose/research questions This article reviews recent research on how speaking a language that marks gender grammatically might affect thinking, and on the relationship between grammatical gender knowledge of more than one language, and thinking, in both early and emergent bilinguals. Design/methodology/approach The paper prov...

Recently researchers have become increasingly interested in the influence of or-thographic forms on second language (L2) phonology. Orthographic forms (or spellings) represent the sounds and words of a language in writing. L2 learn-ers, in particular those in instructed settings, are simultaneously exposed to the orthographic forms and the phonolog...

In spite of burgeoning evidence that the orthographic forms ("spellings") of second language (L2) words affect L2 learners' pronunciation, little is known about the pronunciation of known words in experienced learners. In a series of four studies, we investigated various orthographic effects on the pronunciation of L2 English words in instructed le...

It is generally assumed that speakers of grammatical gender languages consider grammatical gender arbitrary, but this assumption has never been tested. Research shows that the grammatical gender of nouns can affect perceptions of the masculinity or femininity of the noun's referent in speakers of languages with masculine and feminine noun classes....

Spelling means representing a language in writing by using the letters of an alphabet according to conventions.

Vivian James Cook (born June 13, 1940) is an English applied linguist who investigates second language acquisition, and especially multicompetence. He holds a Chair in Applied Linguistics at Newcastle University, UK.

Two experiments tested the role of morphemic information and interword spacing in reading in experienced and inexperienced Chinese readers. Chinese is normally written in hanzi, or characters, which mostly represent monosyllabic morphemes, but it can also be written in pinyin, or romanised Chinese, which represents phonemes and is word-spaced. Whil...

This article provides an introduction to a special issue of Writing Systems Research on second language writing systems. Aside from introducing the contributions to the special issue it lays out central themes and questions.

In recent years writing systems has emerged as a distinct area of research, driven by cross-linguistic studies of the acquisition or use of literacy and its cognitive repercussions, by the novel forms of language use developing in computer-mediated com- munication, and by sociolinguistic explorations of written language as a marker of identity, amo...

English is written with interword spacing, and eliminating it negatively affects English readers. Chinese is written without interword spacing, and adding it does not facilitate Chinese readers. Pinyin (romanized Chinese) is written with interword spacing. This study investigated whether adding interword spacing facilitates reading in Chinese nativ...

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This paper investigates whether bilinguals' and monolinguals' concepts of entities differ when the bilinguals' two languages provide two different representations of the same entity. Previous research shows that speakers of languages that have a grammatical gender system think of objects as being masculine or feminine in line with the grammatical g...

This paper provides evidence that the hanyu pinyin representation of the phonology of Chinese affects the production of Chinese phonology in instructed learners of Chinese as a Foreign Language. Pinyin generally has a one-to-one correspondence between graphemes and phonemes, but its transcription of some Chinese rimes does not represent the main vo...

Cross-linguistic research shows that some aspects of metalinguistic awareness are affected by characteristics of different writing systems. Users of writing systems that mark word boundaries (such as English) develop word awareness, while users of unspaced writing systems (such as Chinese) do not. Previous research showed that English-speaking user...

This paper provides evidence that the second language orthographic input affects the mental representations of L2 phonology in instructed beginner L2 learners. Previous research has shown that orthographic representations affect monolinguals' performance in phonological awareness tasks; in instructed L2 learners such representations could also affe...

An experiment investigated whether Japanese speakers’ categorisation of objects and substances as shape or material is influenced by acquiring English, based on Imai and Gentner (1997). Subjects were presented with an item such as a cork pyramid and asked to choose between two other items that matched it for shape (plastic pyramid) or for material...