Word Association in L1 and L2

Abstract

Word association responses in fi rst-language (L1) Spanish and secondlanguage (L2) English were investigated by means of response latencies and types of associative response produced. The primary aims were to establish whether (a) some response types are produced more often or faster than others, (b) participants' L2 response time profi les mirror those of their L1, and (c) participants' L2 association responses are mediated by their L1 and modulated by proficiency. Results indicate that responses are faster when a double association link is produced-that is, when the response is associated by form and meaning ( postman → postbox ) or meaning and collocation ( spider → web ). L2 response time profi les broadly mirror those of the L1, although L2 times are generally slower. A signifi cant priming effect from L1 translation equivalents of cues used in the L2 association task was observed, suggesting L1 mediation in the production of L2 associative responses. Findings are discussed in light of the revised hierarchical model (Kroll & Stewart, 1994). New approaches to modeling and understanding the bilingual lexicon are also suggested.We would like to thank the editor and fi ve anonymous SSLA reviewers for their very helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article. Thanks also go to Dr. Natividad Hernández-Muñoz (University of Salamanca) for helping with the categorization of data and to participants for generously contributing their time to this project.

A tale of two frequency effects: Toward a verification model of L2 word recognition

“…A similar proficiency-based difference in L1 translation activation in L2 processing was also reported by Fitzpatrick and Izura (2011). They tested Spanish-English bilinguals in two tasks, a word association (WA) task in both L1 Spanish and L2 English followed by an LDT in Spanish.…”

“…We interpret the finding of two independent frequency effects as evidence for the presence of a verification procedure in L2 word recognition whereby L1 translations are checked against the activated L2 words. The verification model outlined here may serve as a conceptual framework for unifying the findings from studies that otherwise seemed unrelated (e.g., Degani et al, 2013;Fitzpatrick & Izura, 2011;Ko et al, 2011;Thierry & Wu, 2007) and for exploring issues such as how L2 speakers' L1, the learning history, and L2 proficiency may affect lexical representation and processing in an L2.…”

Exploring the relationship between productive vocabulary knowledge and second language oral ability

“…Clearly, the absence of significant correlation between percentage scores and oral ability in the study indicates potential problems with the frequency-based principle for assessing vocabulary knowledge (Nation & Webb, 2011). Therefore, in order to further investigate the relationship between vocabulary knowledge and L2 speaking ability, it is important to be aware of other aspects of vocabulary knowledge besides frequency such as L1 cognate (Bardel, Gudmundson, & Lindqvist, 2012), speed of lexical retrieval (Fitzpatrick & Izura, 2011;Miralpeix & Meara, 2014), abstractness (Crossley, Salsbury, & McNamara, 2009), sense relations (Crossley, Salsbury, & McNamara, 2010), richness and sophistication (Lu, 2012), and multi-word units (Kyle & Crossley, 2014).…”

Semantic Convergence in Spanish–English Bilingual Children With Primary Language Impairment

“…The word association task has been widely used to study semantic development in such fields as first-language acquisition (e.g., Entwisle, 1966; Sheng & McGregor, 2010), second-language acquisition (e.g., Fitzpatrick & Izura, 2011; Schmitt, 1998a, 1998b; Schoonen & Verhallen, 2008; Sheng, Bedore, Peña, & Fiestas, 2012; Sheng, McGregor, & Marian, 2006), and cognitive psychology (e.g., Noordman, Vonk, & Simons, 2000). In first-language acquisition, children show increased convergence in their association responses with age.…”