Reading compound words by adult Korean-English bilinguals

The present study investigated how Korean-English bilinguals read compound words in Korean L1 and English L2. Two masked priming lexical decision experiments were conducted, in which written compound words (e.g., ‘bedroom’) and monomorphemic words with a compound-like structure (e.g., ‘hammock’) served as visual targets and were preceded by constituent visual primes (e.g., ‘room’, ‘mock’). In Experiment 1, within-language prime-target pairs (Korean constituent-Korean compound word), and in Experiment 2, cross-language prime-target pairs (Korean L1 constituent-English L2 compound word) were presented. In Experiment 2, the time course of cross-language activation was examined by manipulating the prime duration (36 ms, 48 ms vs. 100 ms). Experiment 1 showed that Korean compound words are processed based on the morpheme unit rather than the salient visual syllable form. In Experiment 2, when reading English L2 compound words, L1 morphological and phonological information are both activated in the early stage (36 ms prime duration), regardless of semantic relatedness. In the later stage (48 and 100 ms prime durations), L1 morphological activation is constrained by semantic relatedness. Shared phonological (form) information without morphological relatedness between L1 and L2 did not facilitate L2 complex word recognition at all stages. Taken together, these findings suggest that bilingual readers are more sensitive to morphological information than form information in both L1 and L2. There is a quick cross-language activation of L1 morphemic information in reading L2 complex words.