Nearly fifteen years ago, Frost published a ground-breaking article, offering a “unified approach for investigating visual word recognition” (Frost Reference Frost1998, p. 94). This approach was predicated on the assertions that (a) reading is a secondary system parasitic on the spoken language system; and (b) written language is an expression of spoken language and, as such, maps systematically to phonology as opposed to meaning. Frost argued that the theory which necessarily emerges from these underlying premises is one in which the core lexical representations that underpin visual word recognition are phonological, and thus, that phonological processing is a mandatory part of the recognition process. This and related work has inspired an almost singular focus on the central role of phonology in reading, reading development, and reading impairment across the world's writing systems (see, e.g., Perfetti Reference Perfetti, McCardle, Miller, Lee and Tzeng2011).
Intriguingly, approaches which put phonology at the heart of the reading process sit rather uncomfortably with the new approach offered by Frost in the target article. One of the crucial insights of the present article is that writing systems necessarily evolve to provide maximal morphological information even at the expense of communicating phonological information faithfully. This principle is illustrated across all five of the writing systems considered, but is most dramatic in the writing systems of Hebrew and English, in which phonological information is very seriously compromised in order to convey morphological information (e.g., spelling “health” irregularly in order to preserve the stem morpheme “heal”). This state of affairs raises questions about the purpose of orthographic processing in reading. If the reading system is tuned to extract information communicated by the writing system, as Frost suggests, and if phonological information is routinely compromised through the preservation of morphological information, then where does that leave theories that view reading as based on access to phonological representations? Does it make sense to suggest that the purpose of orthographic processing is to drive activation of the phonological lexical representations purportedly essential for the computation of meaning (Frost Reference Frost1998)? Frost in the present BBS article does not offer a direct answer to these questions.
Frost, in the target article, ultimately argues that the precedence of morphological information over phonological information – in writing and in cognitive processing – should be regarded as a new universal in the theory of reading. This is an important and welcome conclusion which provides a powerful rationale for an enhanced focus on the role of morphological processing in reading. It is already well established that skilled readers extract morphemic information during their processing of orthography in visual word recognition (for a review, see Rastle & Davis Reference Rastle and Davis2008). My position is that the rapid recovery of this morphemic information underpins a direct visual pathway to meaning that allows skilled readers to compute the meanings of words without the need for phonological recoding (Rastle & Davis Reference Rastle and Davis2008). In contrast to the arguments of theories which put phonology at the heart of the reading process (e.g., Frost Reference Frost1998), written language does map very systematically to meaning, once one goes beyond the relatively small number of single-morpheme words that have dominated most models of reading. Stems surface repeatedly in words with similar meanings (e.g., cleaner, cleanly, unclean), and affixes alter the meanings of stems in highly predictable ways (e.g., repaint, relock, retype). Further, while these regularities also characterise the mapping between phonology and meaning, they are far easier to capture in writing than in speech (e.g. health versus /ʜɛɭθ/; magician versus /mə ‘dʒɪʃən/). Thus, the new approach to a universal theory of reading that Frost offers in the target article would appear to suggest that we should rethink those theories that put phonology at the centre of the reading process, and instead begin to consider seriously the part played by a morphemically based visual pathway to meaning in reading, reading development, and reading impairment.
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Nearly fifteen years ago, Frost published a ground-breaking article, offering a “unified approach for investigating visual word recognition” (Frost Reference Frost1998, p. 94). This approach was predicated on the assertions that (a) reading is a secondary system parasitic on the spoken language system; and (b) written language is an expression of spoken language and, as such, maps systematically to phonology as opposed to meaning. Frost argued that the theory which necessarily emerges from these underlying premises is one in which the core lexical representations that underpin visual word recognition are phonological, and thus, that phonological processing is a mandatory part of the recognition process. This and related work has inspired an almost singular focus on the central role of phonology in reading, reading development, and reading impairment across the world's writing systems (see, e.g., Perfetti Reference Perfetti, McCardle, Miller, Lee and Tzeng2011).
Intriguingly, approaches which put phonology at the heart of the reading process sit rather uncomfortably with the new approach offered by Frost in the target article. One of the crucial insights of the present article is that writing systems necessarily evolve to provide maximal morphological information even at the expense of communicating phonological information faithfully. This principle is illustrated across all five of the writing systems considered, but is most dramatic in the writing systems of Hebrew and English, in which phonological information is very seriously compromised in order to convey morphological information (e.g., spelling “health” irregularly in order to preserve the stem morpheme “heal”). This state of affairs raises questions about the purpose of orthographic processing in reading. If the reading system is tuned to extract information communicated by the writing system, as Frost suggests, and if phonological information is routinely compromised through the preservation of morphological information, then where does that leave theories that view reading as based on access to phonological representations? Does it make sense to suggest that the purpose of orthographic processing is to drive activation of the phonological lexical representations purportedly essential for the computation of meaning (Frost Reference Frost1998)? Frost in the present BBS article does not offer a direct answer to these questions.
Frost, in the target article, ultimately argues that the precedence of morphological information over phonological information – in writing and in cognitive processing – should be regarded as a new universal in the theory of reading. This is an important and welcome conclusion which provides a powerful rationale for an enhanced focus on the role of morphological processing in reading. It is already well established that skilled readers extract morphemic information during their processing of orthography in visual word recognition (for a review, see Rastle & Davis Reference Rastle and Davis2008). My position is that the rapid recovery of this morphemic information underpins a direct visual pathway to meaning that allows skilled readers to compute the meanings of words without the need for phonological recoding (Rastle & Davis Reference Rastle and Davis2008). In contrast to the arguments of theories which put phonology at the heart of the reading process (e.g., Frost Reference Frost1998), written language does map very systematically to meaning, once one goes beyond the relatively small number of single-morpheme words that have dominated most models of reading. Stems surface repeatedly in words with similar meanings (e.g., cleaner, cleanly, unclean), and affixes alter the meanings of stems in highly predictable ways (e.g., repaint, relock, retype). Further, while these regularities also characterise the mapping between phonology and meaning, they are far easier to capture in writing than in speech (e.g. health versus /ʜɛɭθ/; magician versus /mə ‘dʒɪʃən/). Thus, the new approach to a universal theory of reading that Frost offers in the target article would appear to suggest that we should rethink those theories that put phonology at the centre of the reading process, and instead begin to consider seriously the part played by a morphemically based visual pathway to meaning in reading, reading development, and reading impairment.