A Study on the Role of Mental Lexicon in Teaching Movie English

Abstract

The purpose of this study is twofold: firstly, to investigate whether memorization is improved if the L1 mental lexicon (in this case, Korean) is dependent on the L2 mental lexicon (English), or vice versa; secondly, to observe whether L1 and L2 lexicons stay in the same state or whether they remain in different modular conditions. To do this, a case study was undertaken with four college students. Two participants (A and B) had a beginner level of English and two (C and D) had an intermediate level of English. Two movies were used for this study. A similar procedure was performed on both levels. Recall tests of 50 items were administered to both levels. The results showed that participants A, B, and C were successful in memorization and recall, but participant D was unsuccessful. The suggested reason is that A, B, and C depended on the L1 lexicon whereas D depended on the L2 lexicon. It turns out that the primary use of L1 lexicon was effective for memorization. For the second question, it is proposed that less proficient students have a close integration of L1 and L2 lexicons, and that more proficient students have more separation of L1 and L2 lexicons.