Crosslinguistic L1 background comparison graphotactic regularity and phonological context use in English consonant doubling decisions

In opaque languages, like English, spelling is probabilistic and influenced by several factors, that together guide the spelling of new or unknown words. To determine whether a consonant should be doubled, native English speakers use information about the vowel—whether it is long or short and how many characters it is spelled with. When it comes to L2 speakers, the picture becomes more complex as the overlap between their L1 and L2 can affect their performance. The current study focuses on two languages that overlap in writing system—English and Spanish—but not in transparency—the first being opaque while the other transparent. Using the same English pseudoword spelling task as prior studies, we tested whether Spanish speakers’ consonant doubling patterns matched those of native English speakers. We then compared the data to that of native English, Chinese, and Korean speakers to investigate how the L1 background influences these consonant doubling decisions. We found that, unlike native English speakers, L1 Spanish speakers only use graphotactic regularities to determine consonant doubling, but not the phonological context. In contrast, L1 Chinese and L1 Korean speakers—with no writing system overlap with English—behave like native speakers, using both cues. These results suggest that orthography in English—an opaque language—is affected by L1 background. We discuss possible reasons for these differences as well as implications for foreign language teaching and future directions.