Within- and between-language competition in adult second language learners: implications for language proficiency

ABSTRACT

Second language (L2) learners must not only acquire L2 knowledge (i.e. vocabulary and grammar), but they must also rapidly access this knowledge. In monolinguals, efficient spoken word recognition is accomplished via lexical competition, by which listeners activate a range of candidates that compete for recognition as the signal unfolds. We examined this in adult L2 learners, investigating lexical competition both amongst words of the L2, and between L2 and native language (L1) words. Adult L2 learners (N = 33) in their third semester of college Spanish completed a cross-linguistic Visual World Paradigm task to assess lexical activation, along with a proficiency assessment (LexTALE-Esp). L2 learners showed typical incremental processing activating both within-L2 and cross-linguistic competitors, similar to fluent bilinguals. Proficiency correlated with both the speed of activating the target (which prior work links to the developmental progression in L1) and the degree to which competition ultimately resolves (linked to robustness of the lexicon).

KEYWORDS:

• Second language acquisition
• spoken word recognition
• lexical competition
• language proficiency
• visual world paradigm

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Jennifer Dibbern and Isaac Fisher for extensive help with stimulus selection and design. We would like to thank Hianca Pinho for assistance with many hours of data collection and assessment scoring.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Note that this choice is not likely to have a substantial effect on the results after 500 msec -the latest fixation that were excluded would have started at 300 msec, and the average fixation duration is about 200 msec. In contrast, most effects in the present study started after 600 msec.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by an Interdisciplinary Research Grant from the DeLTA (Developmental and Learning from Theory to Application) Center at the University of Iowa, awarded to MES.