Iconicity and Second Language Visual Perception: A Psycholinguistic Study of English Imitative Words at Different De-iconization Stages

Abstract

The study of iconicity, i.e., of a link between form and meaning in a word based on similarity, has gained increased attention in recent years. Although recent research has shown an important role of iconicity for first language acquisition, its role for the second language (L2) acquisition is still unclear, neither is it understood how the perception of imitative words depends on their iconic expressiveness. We applied a multivariate experimental plan with repeated measurements and experimental and control stimuli to study visual recognition of English iconic (imitative) words at four stages of de-iconization (SDs) by native speakers of Russian (N = 106) using a lexical decision task. The participants were presented with an experimental stimulus and had to decide as rapidly as possible whether a visually presented letter string was a word or not. The method of diachronic evaluation was used to group the pre-selected imitative words into four categories where SD-1 words are the most vivid imitative words with an evident (iconic) link between form and meaning, and SD-4 words are the words which have lost this link in the course of language (semantic and phonetic) evolution. The findings have revealed that proceeding speed and accuracy rates are strongly connected to SDs: the less iconic (imitative) a word is, the faster and more accurately it is recognized; most iconic words (SD-1) are characterized by the slowest RTs and lowest accuracy rates. The results suggest that iconicity does affect visual recognition of imitative words by second language learners.

Neural Indicators of Visual Andauditory Recognition of Imitative Words on Different De-Iconization Stages

“…Those words were selected out of 64 semantic stimuli scrupulously drawn from The Russian Etymological Dictionary by Max Vasmer [ 29 ], The Dictionary of Russian Phonosemantic Abnormalities by Shliahova [ 30 ]. Only those words that met the pre-defined clear-cut criteria of homomorphism (in terms of the word’s length (monosyllabic), the lexical category, and the mean frequency of the groups of stimuli [ 31 ]) were chosen. The criterion for the 15 stimuli selection for the EEG experiment was that those stimuli were “typical” representatives of their groups (explicit SI words, implicit SI words, and non-SI words).…”