The role of orthography and phonology during L1 vs. L2 typed production

Dual-route models of typing assume two pathways to retrieve a word’s spelling: a direct route connecting word to letter representations, and an indirect route via sound representations. The individual contribution of each route may depend on the modality of language acquisition: the first language (L1) is acquired sequentially in spoken and written modality respectively, whereas the second language (L2) is often acquired simultaneously in both modalities. We investigated whether sequential bilinguals rely more on the direct route during L2 vs. L1 typing. French-English bilinguals performed a typed picture-word interference task in their L1 and L2. We compared facilitation in naming for distractors that were phonologically (P) related, phonologically + orthographically (PO) related, or unrelated to the target. We predicted more facilitation by PO vs. P distractors in the L2 than in the L1. Participants showed significant facilitation by PO distractors, but not by P distractors, suggesting that orthographic overlap (together with phonology) helped retrieving the target spelling, whereas phonological overlap alone did not. The magnitude of this effect was similar across L1 and L2, contrary to our predictions. However, the absence of mere phonological facilitation suggests that phonology only contributes to typing when supported by orthography.