Lexical access in L2

2015 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 247-270 ◽  
Author(s):  
Svetlana V. Cook ◽  
Kira Gor
Keyword(s):  
Lexical Access ◽  
Interstimulus Interval ◽  
Priming Effect ◽  
Decision Task ◽  
Phonological Priming ◽  
Lexical Competition ◽  
Advanced Learners ◽  
Lexical Representations ◽  
L2 Learners ◽  
Whole Word

Previous research on phonological priming in a Lexical Decision Task (LDT) has demonstrated that second language (L2) learners do not show inhibition typical for native (L1) speakers that results from lexical competition, but rather a reversed effect – facilitation (Gor, Cook, & Jackson, 2010). The present study investigates the source of the reversed priming effect and addresses two possible causes: a deficit in lexical representations and a processing constraint. Twenty-three advanced learners of Russian participated in two experiments. The monolingual Russian LDT task with priming addressed the processing constraint by manipulating the interstimulus interval (ISI, 350 ms and 500 ms). The translation task evaluated the robustness of lexical representations at both the phonolexical level (whole-word phonological representation) and the level of form-to-meaning mapping, thereby addressing the lexical deficit. L2 learners did not benefit from an increased ISI, indicating lack of support for the processing constraint. However, the study, found evidence for the representational deficit: when L2 familiarity with the words is controlled and L2 representations are robust, L2 learners demonstrate native-like processing accompanied by inhibition; however, when the words have fragmented (or fuzzy) representations, L2 lexical access is unfaithful and is accompanied by reduced lexical competition leading to facilitation effects.

PROCESSING OF GENDER AND NUMBER AGREEMENT IN RUSSIAN AS A SECOND LANGUAGE

2016 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-128 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalia Romanova ◽  
Kira Gor
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Lexical Decision ◽  
Lexical Decision Task ◽  
Priming Effect ◽  
Decision Task ◽  
Priming Effects ◽  
Number Agreement ◽  
L2 Learners ◽  
Default Form ◽  
Processing Mechanisms

The study investigated the processing of Russian gender and number agreement by native (n= 36) and nonnative (n= 36) participants using a visual lexical decision task with priming. The design included a baseline condition that helped dissociate the underlying components of priming (facilitation and inhibition). The results showed no differences in the magnitude of priming between native and nonnative participants, and between gender and number agreement. However, whereas the priming effect in native participants consisted of both facilitation and inhibition, in second language (L2) learners it was characterized by facilitation in the absence of inhibition. Furthermore, the nonnative processing failed to demonstrate the default form bias, which optimized gender and number processing in native participants. Taken together, the findings indicate that although highly proficient L2 learners are able to demonstrate nativelike priming effects, their processing of morphosyntactic information engages different processing mechanisms.

scholarly journals Individual Differences in Lexical Access Among Cochlear Implant Users

2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 286-304
Author(s):  
Leanne Nagels ◽  
Roelien Bastiaanse ◽  
Deniz Başkent ◽  
Anita Wagner
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Speech Perception ◽  
Cochlear Implant ◽  
Lexical Access ◽  
Time Course ◽  
Decision Task ◽  
Lexical Competition ◽  
Sensitivity Experiment ◽  
Sentential Context ◽  
Lower Accuracy

Purpose The current study investigates how individual differences in cochlear implant (CI) users' sensitivity to word–nonword differences, reflecting lexical uncertainty, relate to their reliance on sentential context for lexical access in processing continuous speech. Method Fifteen CI users and 14 normal-hearing (NH) controls participated in an auditory lexical decision task (Experiment 1) and a visual-world paradigm task (Experiment 2). Experiment 1 tested participants' reliance on lexical statistics, and Experiment 2 studied how sentential context affects the time course and patterns of lexical competition leading to lexical access. Results In Experiment 1, CI users had lower accuracy scores and longer reaction times than NH listeners, particularly for nonwords. In Experiment 2, CI users' lexical competition patterns were, on average, similar to those of NH listeners, but the patterns of individual CI users varied greatly. Individual CI users' word–nonword sensitivity (Experiment 1) explained differences in the reliance on sentential context to resolve lexical competition, whereas clinical speech perception scores explained competition with phonologically related words. Conclusions The general analysis of CI users' lexical competition patterns showed merely quantitative differences with NH listeners in the time course of lexical competition, but our additional analysis revealed more qualitative differences in CI users' strategies to process speech. Individuals' word–nonword sensitivity explained different parts of individual variability than clinical speech perception scores. These results stress, particularly for heterogeneous clinical populations such as CI users, the importance of investigating individual differences in addition to group averages, as they can be informative for clinical rehabilitation. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.11368106

Direct mapping of acoustics to phonology: On the lexical encoding of front rounded vowels in L1 English– L2 French acquisition

2012 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isabelle Darcy ◽  
Laurent Dekydtspotter ◽  
Rex A Sprouse ◽  
Justin Glover ◽  
Christiane Kaden ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Decision Task ◽  
Phonological Representations ◽  
Advanced Learners ◽  
Categorization Task ◽  
Lexical Representations ◽  
Minimal Pairs ◽  
Direct Mapping ◽  
Intermediate Learners ◽  
Phonetic Categorization

It is well known that adult US-English-speaking learners of French experience difficulties acquiring high /y/–/u/ and mid /œ/–/ɔ/ front vs. back rounded vowel contrasts in French. This study examines the acquisition of these French vowel contrasts at two levels: phonetic categorization and lexical representations. An ABX categorization task (for details, see Section IV) revealed that both advanced and intermediate learners categorized /œ/ vs. /ɔ/ and /y/ vs. /u/ differently from native speakers of French, although performance on the /y/–/u/ contrast was more accurate than on the /œ/–/ɔ/ contrast in all contexts. On a lexical decision task with repetition priming, advanced learners and native speakers produced no (spurious) response time (RT) facilitations for /y/–/u/ and /œ/–/ɔ/ minimal pairs; however, in intermediate learners, the decision for a word containing /y/ was speeded by hearing an otherwise identical word containing /u/ (and vice versa), suggesting that /u/ and /y/ are not distinguished in lexical representations. Thus, while it appears that advanced learners encoded the /y/–/u/ and /œ/–/ɔ/ contrasts in the phonological representations of lexical items, they gained no significant benefit on the categorization task. This dissociation between phonological representations and phonetic categorization challenges common assumptions about their relationship and supports a novel approach we label ‘direct mapping from acoustics to phonology’ (DMAP).

Cognate facilitation priming effect is modulated by writing system: Evidence from Chinese-English bilinguals

2018 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 553-566 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juan Zhang ◽  
Chenggang Wu ◽  
Tiemin Zhou ◽  
Yaxuan Meng
Keyword(s):  
Repeated Measures ◽  
Priming Effect ◽  
Decision Task ◽  
Phonological Priming ◽  
Writing Systems ◽  
Facilitation Effect ◽  
Chinese Translation ◽  
Priming Paradigm ◽  
The Cross ◽  
Phonological Activation

Aims: The present study aims to examine the cross-script cognate facilitation effect that cognates have processing advantages over non-cognates and this effect is strong evidence supporting the non-selective access hypothesis for bilinguals. Methodology: By adopting a masked translation priming paradigm, Experiment 1 used 48 Chinese–English cognates (Chinese words) and 48 non-cognates (Chinese words) as primes and their English translation equivalences as targets. Chinese–English bilinguals were instructed to judge whether the target stimuli were real words or not. In Experiment 2, another group of participants took the same lexical decision task as in Experiment 1, except that English–Chinese cognates and non-cognates (English words) served as primes and their Chinese translation equivalences were targets. Data and analysis: Response latency and accuracy data were submitted to a repeated-measures analysis of variance. Findings/conclusions: Experiment 1 showed that Chinese–English cognates (Chinese words) and non-cognates (Chinese words) produced similar priming effect, while Experiment 2 revealed that English–Chinese cognates (English words) generated a significant priming effect, whereas non-cognates (English words) failed to induce any priming effect. Overall, Chinese words did not show cognate advantage, while English words produced a significant cognate facilitation effect. These results might be attributed to different mappings from orthography to phonology in English and Chinese. Opaque mapping from orthography to phonology in Chinese hindered phonological activation and reduced Chinese–English cognate phonological priming effect. However, English–Chinese cognates benefited from transparent mapping from sound to print and thus generated a significant phonological priming effect. Implications of the current findings for bilingual word recognition models were discussed. Originality: The present study is the first to investigate the cross-script cognate facilitation effect by ensuring both the heterogeneity of primes and targets (English and Chinese) and the homogeneity of primes (Chinese or English). The results indicated that the writing systems of the primes constrained the cross-script cognate priming effect.

Asymmetric lexical access and fuzzy lexical representations in second language learners

2013 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 372-420 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isabelle Darcy ◽  
Danielle Daidone ◽  
Chisato Kojima
Keyword(s):  
Language Learners ◽  
Lexical Access ◽  
English Learners ◽  
Second Language Learners ◽  
American English ◽  
Advanced Learners ◽  
Lexical Representations ◽  
Phonetic Categorization ◽  
New Evidence ◽  
Over Time

For L2-learners, confusable phonemic categories lead to ambiguous lexical representations. Yet, learners can establish separate lexical representations for confusable categories, as shown by asymmetric patterns of lexical access, but the source of this asymmetry is not clear (Cutler et al., 2006). Two hypotheses compete, situating its source either at the lexical coding level or at the phonetic categorization level. The lexical coding hypothesis suggests that learners’ encoding of an unfamiliar category is not target-like but makes reference to a familiar L1 category (encoded as a poor exemplar of that L1 category). Four experiments examined how learners lexically encode confusable phonemic categories. American English learners of Japanese and of German were tested on phonetic categorization and lexical decision for geminate/singleton contrasts and front/back rounded vowel contrasts. Results showed the same asymmetrical patterns as Cutler et al.’s (2006), indicating that learners encode a lexical distinction between difficult categories. Results also clarify that the source of the asymmetry is located at the lexical coding level and does not emerge during input categorization: the distinction is not target-like, and makes reference to L1 categories. We further provide new evidence that asymmetries can be resolved over time: advanced learners are establishing more native-like lexical representations.

Effects of Lexical Competition and Dialect Exposure on Phonological Priming

2016 ◽  
Vol 60 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cynthia G. Clopper ◽  
Abby Walker
Keyword(s):  
Lexical Decision ◽  
Decision Task ◽  
Processing Strategy ◽  
Real Word ◽  
Phonological Priming ◽  
Front Vowel ◽  
Lexical Competition ◽  
Phonetic Similarity ◽  
Phonological Form

A cross-modal lexical decision task was used to explore the effects of lexical competition and dialect exposure on phonological form priming. Relative to unrelated auditory primes, matching real word primes facilitated lexical decision for visual real word targets, whereas competing minimal pair primes inhibited lexical decision. These effects were robust across two English vowel pairs (mid–front and low–front) and for two listener groups (mono-dialectal and multi-dialectal). However, both the most robust facilitation and the most robust inhibition were observed for the mid–front vowel words with few phonological competitors for the mono-dialectal listener group. The mid–front vowel targets were acoustically more distinct than the low–front vowel targets, suggesting that acoustic–phonetic similarity leads to stronger lexical competition and less robust facilitation and inhibition. The multi-dialectal listeners had more prior exposure to multiple different dialects than the mono-dialectal group, suggesting that long-term exposure to linguistic variability contributes to a more flexible processing strategy in which lexical competition extends over a longer period of time, leading to less robust facilitation and inhibition.

scholarly journals Exploring the relationship between lexical access and proficiency level in L2 speech production

2014 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 381-402
Author(s):  
Gicele V. V. Prebianca
Keyword(s):  
Speech Production ◽  
Lexical Access ◽  
Statistical Significance ◽  
Facilitatory Effect ◽  
Experimental Conditions ◽  
Advanced Learners ◽  
Lexical Representations ◽  
Proficiency Level ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
L2 Speech Production

This study explores the relationship between lexical access and proficiency level in L2 speech production. Forty-one participants (intermediate and advanced learners of English as a foreign language) performed a lexical access task in L2 which yielded two measures: reaction time (RT) and naming accuracy (NA). The statistical analysis point to a facilitatory effect of semantic related word distractors on L2 picture-naming for the experimental and control conditions in both proficiency groups. In addition, only the mean difference in NA scores for the control and experimental conditions between proficiency groups reached statistical significance. That is, advanced learners overpassed the intermediate ones in number of words correctly named. Results also indicate a partial relationship between RT and NA scores. Findings are explained in light of research on L2 speech production, lexical access and working memory, taking into account the development of L2 proficiency and L2 lexical representations.

EXPRESS: Do both WRAP and TRAP inhibit the recognition of the French word DRAP? Impact of orthographic markedness on cross-language orthographic priming

2021 ◽  
pp. 174702182110487
Author(s):  
Eva Commissaire
Keyword(s):  
Word Recognition ◽  
Lexical Decision ◽  
Lexical Decision Task ◽  
Priming Effect ◽  
Lexical Processing ◽  
Decision Task ◽  
Lexical Competition ◽  
Orthographic Coding ◽  
Orthographic Priming ◽  
Cross Language

We investigated lexical and sub-lexical orthographic coding in bilingual visual word recognition by examining interactions between orthographic neighborhood and markedness. In three experiments, French/English bilinguals performed a masked lexical decision task in French (L1) in which orthographically related prime words could be either marked or unmarked English (L2) words, compared to unrelated primes (e.g., wrap, trap, gift – DRAP, meaning sheet). The results yielded an overall inhibition priming effect, which was unexpectedly more robust in the marked condition than in the unmarked one. This result highlights the need to integrate both lexical competition and orthographic markedness in bilingual models such as BIA/+ and determine how the latter may modulate lexical processing in bilinguals.

EVEN IN THE BEST-CASE SCENARIO L2 LEARNERS HAVE PERSISTENT DIFFICULTY PERCEIVING AND UTILIZING TONES IN MANDARIN

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-29
Author(s):  
Eric Pelzl ◽  
Ellen F. Lau ◽  
Taomei Guo ◽  
Robert DeKeyser
Keyword(s):  
Word Recognition ◽  
Lexical Decision ◽  
Word Processing ◽  
Event Related Potential ◽  
Case Scenario ◽  
Advanced Learners ◽  
Lexical Representations ◽  
L2 Processing ◽  
L2 Learners ◽  
Disyllabic Word

Abstract Lexical tones are widely believed to be a formidable learning challenge for adult speakers of nontonal languages. While difficulties—as well as rapid improvements—are well documented for beginning second language (L2) learners, research with more advanced learners is needed to understand how tone perception difficulties impact word recognition once learners have a substantial vocabulary. The present study narrows in on difficulties suggested in previous work, which found a dissociation in advanced L2 learners between highly accurate tone identification and largely inaccurate lexical decision for tone words. We investigate a “best-case scenario” for advanced L2 tone word processing by testing performance in nearly ideal listening conditions—with words spoken clearly and in isolation. Under such conditions, do learners still have difficulty in lexical decision for tone words? If so, is it driven by the quality of lexical representations or by L2 processing routines? Advanced L2 and native Chinese listeners made lexical decisions while an electroencephalogram was recorded. Nonwords had a first syllable with either a vowel or tone that differed from that of a common disyllabic word. As a group, L2 learners performed less accurately when tones were manipulated than when vowels were manipulated. Subsequent analyses showed that this was the case even in the subset of items for which learners showed correct and confident tone identification in an offline written vocabulary test. Event-related potential results indicated N400 effects for both nonword conditions in L1, but only vowel N400 effects in L2, with tone responses intermediate between those of real words and vowel nonwords. These results are evidence of the persistent difficulty most L2 learners have in using tones for online word recognition, and indicate it is driven by a confluence of factors related to both L2 lexical representations and processing routines. We suggest that this tone nonword difficulty has real-world implications for learners: It may result in many toneless word representations in their mental lexicons, and is likely to affect the efficiency with which they can learn new tone words.

Phonological priming and the role of phonology in nonnative word recognition

2018 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 437-442 ◽  
Author(s):  
KIRA GOR
Keyword(s):  
Word Recognition ◽  
Lexical Decision ◽  
Lexical Decision Task ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Nonnative Speakers ◽  
Decision Task ◽  
Phonological Priming ◽  
Lexical Competition ◽  
Minimal Pairs

Research on nonnative auditory word recognition makes use of a lexical decision task with phonological priming to explore the role of phonological form in nonnative lexical access. In a medium-lag lexical decision task with phonological priming, nonnative speakers treat minimal pairs of words differentiated by a difficult phonological contrast as a repetition of the same word. While native speakers show facilitation in medium-lag priming only for identical word pairs, nonnative speakers also show facilitation for minimal pairs. In short-lag phonological priming, when the prime and the target have phonologically overlapping onsets, nonnative speakers show facilitation, while native speakers show inhibition. This review discusses two possible reasons for facilitation in nonnative phonological priming: reduced sensitivity to nonnative phonological contrasts, and reduced lexical competition of nonnative words with underdifferentiated, or fuzzy phonolexical representations. Nonnative words may be processed sublexically, which leads to sublexical facilitation instead of the inhibition resulting from lexical competition.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document