Presentation

The Influence of Various Visual Input Types on L2 Learners’ Memory for Phonological Forms of Newly-Learned Words

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Abstract

Showalter and Hayes-Harb (2013) reported that native English speakers who were exposed to tone marks (e.g., ) outperformed learners not exposed to tone marks (e.g., ) during a word learning task involving a Mandarin-like mini lexicon. The present study investigated whether the word form learning benefit reported in Showalter and Hayes-Harb (2013) is necessarily orthographic. Subjects were assigned to word learning conditions providing the pseudo- Mandarin stimuli from Showalter and Hayes-Harb in addition to various other types of visual information: screen color, screen position, and combinations of position, color, and letters. Results from Showalter and Hayes-Harb were not replicated. Text position was found to provide a benefit over other non- orthographic visual information (color), as well as orthographic information (tone marks). The findings suggest that orthography, while a likely contributor to a performance benefit, is not the only beneficial visual information during word learning. At this time, there is a need for studies that investigate the benefit of other types of visual information.

How to Cite:

Durham, K., Hayes-Harb, R., Barrios, S. & Showalter, C. E., (2015) “The Influence of Various Visual Input Types on L2 Learners’ Memory for Phonological Forms of Newly-Learned Words”, Pronunciation in Second Language Learning and Teaching Proceedings 7(1).