Authors:

Patterson, K. & Coltheart, V.

Reference:

Year of publication:

1987

CBU number:

1967

Abstract:

This review will be organised around the twin questions of how orthography is translated to phonology when people read aloud and whether orthography is translated to phonology when people read silently. With respect to the first of these issues, what were once considered genuinely opposing views (‘dual-routine’ and ‘analogy’ models) are becoming difficult to distinguish. A charcter in a novel by Elizabeth Jane Howard comments that when his servant went into a sulk, the Champagne and the bathwater become precisely the same uninviting temperature. Without specifying which (analogy and dual-routine models) is the Champagne and which the bathwater, the review will suggest that the temperatures of these two approaches are indeed now rather similar. Although phonological coding appears to be persona non grata in much recent thinking about reading, our review provides considerable evidence of phonological processes in silent reading; and we consider the proposition that normal readers automatically obtain, though do not necessarily rely upon, phonological representations for printed words.