Contrasting contributions of phonological short‐term memory and long‐term knowledge to vocabulary learning in a foreign language

Abstract

The contributions of phonological short-term memory and existing foreign vocabulary knowledge to the learning of new words in a second language were compared in a sample of 40 Greek children studying English at school. The children's speed of learning new English words in a paired-associate learning task was strongly influenced by their current English vocabulary, but was independent of phonological memory skill, indexed by nonword repetition ability. However, phonological memory performance was closely linked to English vocabulary scores. The findings suggest that in learners with considerable familiarity with a second language, foreign vocabulary acquisition is mediated largely by use of existing knowledge representations.

Proficiency and sentence constraint effects on second language word learning

“…Previous studies on word learning focused more on the role of shortterm memory and word knowledge and were mostly based on situations without sentential context (Chen & Cowan, 2009;Gathercole & Masoura, 2003;Gray, 2006;Hu, 2003;Maury & Luotoniemi, 2007;Storkel, Armbruster, & Hogan, 2006). A large number of studies adopted training tasks with clearly defined learning objectives, requiring participants to retain and later retrieve what they've learned (Jeong et al, 2010;Laufer & Rozovski-Roitblat, 2011;McLaughlin, Osterhout, & Kim, 2004;Raboyeau et al, 2004;Shtyrov, 2012;Yu & Smith, 2011;Yu, Zhong, & Fricker, 2012).…”

The relation between language experience and receptive-expressive semantic gaps in bilingual children

“…Some authors have argued that nonword repetition is primarily a measure of the quality of an individual’s phonological representations (Bowey 1996, 1997; Metsala 1999; however, see Gathercole 2006, for an argument that nonword repetition is primarily a measure of phonological short-term memory). Several studies with bilingual speakers have demonstrated that as knowledge of a language improves, so does performance on nonword repetition tasks, at least until a ceiling is reached (Cheung 1996; Masoura and Gathercole 2005; Thorn and Gathercole 1999; Thorn, Gathercole, and Frankish 2002). If nonword repetition is a measure of the quality of phonological representations, then it is reasonable to conclude that, due to divided input, the quality of phonological representations for bilinguals will be weaker than those for monolingual peers.…”

Cross-Language Nonword Repetition by Bilingual and Monolingual Children

“…The authors interpreted this finding as indicating that phonological short-term memory alone was sufficient to explain vocabulary acquisition. In another study, Masoura and Gathercole (2005) examined the NWR skills of Greek children learning English as an L2, but at a point at which children had at least 3 years of exposure to English and relatively large English vocabularies. NWR performance again was found to be correlated across languages; however, reminiscent of Cheung’s (1996) conclusion, NWR was correlated with current English vocabulary knowledge but not with the number of trials needed to learn new words.…”