Invited Talks

Teaching an Old Word New Tricks: Phonological Updates in the L2 Mental Lexicon

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Abstract

We examine the dynamic relationship between perception of challenging phonological dimensions and their lexical representation in second language learners. We ask whether learners update the phonological form of words in their mental lexicon for all words simultaneously as a result of perception improvements, or whether updates are word- specific. Taking into account the trajectory of perceptual development and word learning over time, we examine this question using a lexical decision task targeting two vowel contrasts in Korean: /o/-/ʌ/ (test) and /o/-/a/ (control), the test contrast being especially challenging for L1 Mandarin learners of Korean. Participants also completed a vowel identification task, a background questionnaire, and a word familiarity questionnaire. The results confirmed that several learners had imprecise phonolexical representations, especially for words containing the test contrast. While most learners were very accurate at identifying this contrast, those with the most confusions were also least accurate in lexical decision. We also observed a trend towards word-specific phonolexical updates: words that were learned more recently were encoded more accurately than words learned earlier. The data raise the question of which lexical representations bilinguals create for words they learn, and how pronunciation instruction can help addressing phonological issues in the bilingual mental lexicon.

How to Cite:

Darcy, I. & Holliday, J. J., (2018) “Teaching an Old Word New Tricks: Phonological Updates in the L2 Mental Lexicon”, Pronunciation in Second Language Learning and Teaching Proceedings 10(1).