TY - JOUR

T1 - From "cracking the orthographic code" to "playing with language"

T2 - Toward a usage-based foundation of the reading process

AU - Wallot, Sebastian

N1 - FP7: 264828

PY - 2014/8/22

Y1 - 2014/8/22

N2 - The empirical study of reading dates back more than 125 years. But despite this long tradition, the scientific understanding of reading has made rather heterogeneous progress: many factors that influence the process of text reading have been uncovered, but theoretical explanations remain fragmented; no general theory pulls together the diverse findings. A handful of scholars have noted that properties thought to be at the core of the reading process do not actually generalize across different languages or from situations single-word reading to connected text reading. Such observations cast doubt on many of the traditional conceptions about reading. In this article, I suggest that the observed heterogeneity in the research is due to misguided conceptions about the reading process. Particularly problematic are the unrefined notions about meaning which undergird many reading theories: most psychological theories of reading implicitly assume a kind of elemental token semantics, where words serve as stable units of meaning in a text. This conception of meaning creates major conceptual problems. As an alternative, I argue that reading shoud be rather understood as a form of language use, which circumvents many of the conceptual problems and connects reading to a wider range of linguistic communication. Finally, drawing from Wittgenstein, the concept of "language games" is outlined as an approach to language use that can be operationalized scientifically to provide a new foundation for reading research.

AB - The empirical study of reading dates back more than 125 years. But despite this long tradition, the scientific understanding of reading has made rather heterogeneous progress: many factors that influence the process of text reading have been uncovered, but theoretical explanations remain fragmented; no general theory pulls together the diverse findings. A handful of scholars have noted that properties thought to be at the core of the reading process do not actually generalize across different languages or from situations single-word reading to connected text reading. Such observations cast doubt on many of the traditional conceptions about reading. In this article, I suggest that the observed heterogeneity in the research is due to misguided conceptions about the reading process. Particularly problematic are the unrefined notions about meaning which undergird many reading theories: most psychological theories of reading implicitly assume a kind of elemental token semantics, where words serve as stable units of meaning in a text. This conception of meaning creates major conceptual problems. As an alternative, I argue that reading shoud be rather understood as a form of language use, which circumvents many of the conceptual problems and connects reading to a wider range of linguistic communication. Finally, drawing from Wittgenstein, the concept of "language games" is outlined as an approach to language use that can be operationalized scientifically to provide a new foundation for reading research.

KW - Psychology

KW - Language games

KW - Language use

KW - Meaning

KW - Natural reading

KW - Reading research

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84906350643&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/9b895770-ff52-39ef-acc4-ce8317ef2206/

U2 - 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00891

DO - 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00891

M3 - Journal articles

AN - SCOPUS:84906350643

VL - 5

JO - Frontiers in Psychology

JF - Frontiers in Psychology

SN - 1664-1078

IS - AUG

M1 - 891

ER -