Lexical transfer in second- and third language early vocabulary acquisition
Suhonen, Lari-Valtteri LU
(2021)
EuroSLA 30, 2020
- Abstract
- Comparing lexical transfer in second- and third language early vocabulary acquisition The present study compared 30 functional English monolinguals and 30 highly proficient (CEFR C1+) Swedish–English bilinguals. They acquired vocabulary in a pseudo-language derived from typologically unrelated Finnish. None of the participants had productive proficiency in Finnish although for societal reasons the Swedish–English bilinguals have pre-existing knowledge of Finnish phonotactics. English monolingual data was collected in the UK and Swedish bilingual data in Sweden. A computerized paired-associate learning task was used to teach form-meaning mappings in four blocks of four instances of each word. The participants performance was tracked using... (More)
- Comparing lexical transfer in second- and third language early vocabulary acquisition The present study compared 30 functional English monolinguals and 30 highly proficient (CEFR C1+) Swedish–English bilinguals. They acquired vocabulary in a pseudo-language derived from typologically unrelated Finnish. None of the participants had productive proficiency in Finnish although for societal reasons the Swedish–English bilinguals have pre-existing knowledge of Finnish phonotactics. English monolingual data was collected in the UK and Swedish bilingual data in Sweden. A computerized paired-associate learning task was used to teach form-meaning mappings in four blocks of four instances of each word. The participants performance was tracked using time-on-task measures throughout the learning process in addition to accuracy measures at the end of each block. Two types of words were taught: items containing cross-language semantic ambiguity and items without cross-language semantic ambiguity (Degani, Prior, Eddington, Areas de Luz Fontes & Tokowicz, 2016). The participants received both auditory and visual input. A learning assessment task was administered after each block. All presented forms in the artificial language were bi-syllabic and phonotactically well-formed in Finnish. The meanings were all concrete nouns and were borrowed from the participants’ two languages. For the bilingual participants, psychotypology was measured both using subjective and conscious measures. The first was measured using a lexical decision task in the target language with items borrowed from both source languages adjusted to Finnish phonotactics. The latter was measured using a perceived similarity questionnaire. Both participant groups took two-back and three-back variants of the n-back task of working memory (Kirschner, 1958) as well as the Eriksen Flanker task of cognitive control (Eriksen & Eriksen, 1974). The primary research question compare the two participant groups performance in the two types of items. While the monolingual participants are aware of within-language semantic ambiguity, the bilingual participants have more experience with cross-language semantic ambiguity. Comparing the two groups in terms of task-on-time in the cross-language semantic ambiguity items with two translation equivalents in the source languages across the groups allows for analysis of the learning process. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/c9933573-8283-4182-b814-789cdf114fdf
- author
- Suhonen, Lari-Valtteri
LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2021
- type
- Contribution to conference
- publication status
- published
- subject
- conference name
- EuroSLA 30, 2020
- conference location
- Barcelona, Spain
- conference dates
- 2020-07-01 - 2020-07-04
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- c9933573-8283-4182-b814-789cdf114fdf
- date added to LUP
- 2022-01-17 11:25:31
- date last changed
- 2022-01-21 13:30:10
@misc{c9933573-8283-4182-b814-789cdf114fdf,
abstract = {{Comparing lexical transfer in second- and third language early vocabulary acquisition The present study compared 30 functional English monolinguals and 30 highly proficient (CEFR C1+) Swedish–English bilinguals. They acquired vocabulary in a pseudo-language derived from typologically unrelated Finnish. None of the participants had productive proficiency in Finnish although for societal reasons the Swedish–English bilinguals have pre-existing knowledge of Finnish phonotactics. English monolingual data was collected in the UK and Swedish bilingual data in Sweden. A computerized paired-associate learning task was used to teach form-meaning mappings in four blocks of four instances of each word. The participants performance was tracked using time-on-task measures throughout the learning process in addition to accuracy measures at the end of each block. Two types of words were taught: items containing cross-language semantic ambiguity and items without cross-language semantic ambiguity (Degani, Prior, Eddington, Areas de Luz Fontes & Tokowicz, 2016). The participants received both auditory and visual input. A learning assessment task was administered after each block. All presented forms in the artificial language were bi-syllabic and phonotactically well-formed in Finnish. The meanings were all concrete nouns and were borrowed from the participants’ two languages. For the bilingual participants, psychotypology was measured both using subjective and conscious measures. The first was measured using a lexical decision task in the target language with items borrowed from both source languages adjusted to Finnish phonotactics. The latter was measured using a perceived similarity questionnaire. Both participant groups took two-back and three-back variants of the n-back task of working memory (Kirschner, 1958) as well as the Eriksen Flanker task of cognitive control (Eriksen & Eriksen, 1974). The primary research question compare the two participant groups performance in the two types of items. While the monolingual participants are aware of within-language semantic ambiguity, the bilingual participants have more experience with cross-language semantic ambiguity. Comparing the two groups in terms of task-on-time in the cross-language semantic ambiguity items with two translation equivalents in the source languages across the groups allows for analysis of the learning process.}},
author = {{Suhonen, Lari-Valtteri}},
language = {{eng}},
title = {{Lexical transfer in second- and third language early vocabulary acquisition}},
year = {{2021}},
}