Lexical representation of Chinese–English bilinguals: evidence of an interconnection model

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine mental representation of Chinese–English bilinguals using an episodic recognition task (ERT) in priming paradigm. Two experiments were conducted. The stimuli were L1–L2 word pairs in experiment 1, and pairs of nonsense symbols in experiment 2. In both experiments, clear priming effects by pure association between prime and target from training stage were found. Besides, as the repetition frequency of stimuli increases, the priming effect was more robust. We then concluded that L1 and L2 were not connected at lexical level. Literature showed the connection could be built by conceptual relationship. However, our results suggested conceptual relatedness was not required. Pure association itself could also connect the lexical representation of L1 and L2. An interconnection model was then supported.