Kontekst en Woordherkenning in Moedertaal en Vreemde Taal

This survey article discusses the results of research into the influence of context on visual and especially on auditory word recognition. In auditory word recognition the main problem is the lack of phonetic invariance in the realization of words. Context helps to minimize this problem. Word recognition appears to be influenced by semantically related words occurring in prior context. There is some evidence that foreign language listeners, like very young native speakers, make more use of context than adult native speakers. Syntax seems to play a role in word recognition, too, as does the context following the word in question.