Bilingual word recognition in English and Greek

The word recognition processes of proficient bilinguals were examined in their mother tongue (Greek) and in English in relation to the linguistic and syntactic characteristics along which the two languages differ. Their processes were then compared with those of monolingual readers.The following issues were addressed: the nature of bilingual functioning, whether it is language specific, and the factors that affect second language reading development. These issues were examined within the context of a letter cancellation paradigm. The results indicated that bilingual readers performed differently in each of their two languages, conforming more the monolingual patterns in their mother tongue than to those in their second language. This discrepancy was interpreted as a lack of coordination of different word recognition skills in the second language.