Fuzzy Nonnative Phonolexical Representations Lead to Fuzzy Form-to-Meaning Mappings

Abstract

The present paper explores nonnative (L2) phonological encoding of lexical entries and dissociates the difficulties associated with L2 phonological and phonolexical encoding by focusing on similarly sounding L2 words that are not differentiated by difficult phonological contrasts. We test two main claims of the fuzzy lexicon hypothesis: (1) L2 fuzzy phonolexical representations are not fully specified and lack details at both phonological and phonolexical levels of representation (Experiment 1); and (2) fuzzy phonolexical representations can lead to establishing incorrect form-to-meaning mappings (Experiment 2). The Russian-English Translation Judgment Task (Experiment 1, TJT) explores how the degree of phonolexical similarity between a word and its lexical competitor affects lexical access of Russian words. Words with smaller phonolexical distance (e.g., parent–parrot) show longer reaction times and lower accuracy compared to words with a larger phonolexical distance (e.g., parent–parchment) in lower-proficiency nonnative speakers, and, to a lesser degree, higher-proficiency speakers. This points to a lack of detail in nonnative phonolexical representations necessary for efficient lexical access. The Russian Pseudo-Semantic Priming task (Experiment 2, PSP) addresses the vulnerability of form-to-meaning mappings as a consequence of fuzzy phonolexical representations in L2. We primed the target with a word semantically related to its phonological competitor, or a potentially confusable word. The findings of Experiment 2 extend the results of Experiment 1 that, unlike native speakers, nonnative speakers do not properly encode phonolexical information. As a result, they are prone to access an incorrect lexical representation of a competitor word, as indicated by a slowdown in the judgments to confusable words. The study provides evidence that fuzzy phonolexical representations result in unfaithful form-to-meaning mappings, which lead to retrieval of incorrect semantic content. The results of the study are in line with existing research in support of less detailed L2 phonolexical representations, and extend the findings to show that the fuzziness of phonolexical representations can arise even when confusable words are not differentiated by difficult phonological contrasts.

Quantifying contextual effects in second language processing of phonolexically ambiguous and unambiguous words

“…Taking this into account, weaker semantic effects in the L2 group in the LDT may not be rooted in the encoding problem of the palatalization feature per se, but may reflect the overall higher uncertainty and fuzziness at the lexical level. For example, Cook et al (2016) argue that even words that do not involve phonologically difficult distinctions but that sound more or less similar, like "quarrel-squirrel," may be unfaithfully represented at the lexical level and can lead to the retrieval of incorrect semantic content (see "the fuzzy lexicon hypothesis" in Cook et al, 2016).…”

“…For example, hearing the onset pa-in "panda" activates "pencil" for Dutch listeners (Weber & Cutler, 2004) and the onset r-in "rocket" activates "locker" for Japanese listeners (Cutler, Weber, & Otake, 2006). Phonolexical ambiguity can also occur in quite distinct words due to weak and fuzzy form-to-meaning mappings in the L2 (e.g., "quarrel"-"squirrel"; Cook & Gor, 2015;Cook, Pandža, Lancaster, & Gor, 2016).…”

Phonological priming and the role of phonology in nonnative word recognition

“…Given the existing research, it is safe to assume that bottom-up (‘categories first’) and top-down (‘lexicon first’) acquisition interact in L2 in a bootstrapping fashion; however, the establishment of L2 phonological categories is a prerequisite for the development of robust phonological representations of numerous L2 words stored in the mental lexicon (see Gor, 2015 for a review). The research targeting phonological representations of words, or phonolexical representations (Cook et al, 2016), focuses primarily on L2 words with difficult L2 contrasts. It makes use of phonological priming combined with a LDT, and compares the effects of medium-lag repetition priming (facilitation on the second presentation of the same real word), and the priming in minimal pairs of words contrasted by one phoneme.…”

“…The reported effects for L2 are the opposite: facilitation (Broersma, 2012). The research belonging to the third direction discussed below suggests a possible explanation for this conflict by evoking the notion of fuzzy phonolexical representations (Cook, 2012; Cook & Gor, 2015; Cook et al, 2016; Darcy et al, 2013). The initial premise is that phonolexical representations of L2 words with perceptually difficult phonemes are not properly encoded in the mental lexicon, and are phonolexically underdifferentiated, or fuzzy.…”

“… 4 Moreover, such fuzzy phonolexical representations are accompanied by fuzzy form-meaning mappings, which result in the retrieval of semantically incorrect lexical items in L2 (Cook et al, 2016). …”