Abstract
Pronounceable words are divided into two types; one is known words and the other is unknown words or pseudowords. According to L1 research, many theorists have found that phonological decoding based on word pronunciation has correlation with reading comprehension skills, whether the words are known or pseudowords. In Japan, one L2 study dealt with known words and showed that there is a relationship between the efficiency of phonological decoding and reading comprehension. However, there is hardly any study concerned with pseudowords. Because Japanese people tend to recognize a word as a whole form, not as assembled letter-strings based on letters-to-sound translation rules, their lexical route efficiency might be activated, but it can not be presumed that their non-lexical route efficiency is the same. The following study was initiated in order to clarify how Japanese learners' reliance on lexical route in learning words would relate with reading comprehension. This study showed that there is a more significant relationship between the efficiency of phonological decoding and reading comprehension with pseudowords than there is with known words. This result suggests that word learning be done with the tactic of segmenting words with the knowledge of letters-to-sound translation, rather than with holistic memorization that Japanese learners of English are more likely to use.
