Constructing Models Of Dutch-English-Mandarin Trilinguals' Mental Lexicon Representation And L3 Conceptual Access

Psycholinguists have yet reached a consensus concerning bilinguals' sharedness or separateness of conceptual and lexical storage patterns,symmetry or asymmetry in terms of link strength and routes for conceptual access.Less explored are those about trilinguals,despite the more complicated nature of trilingualism.Among the few existing psycholinguistic investigations into trilingualism,participants with Mandarin as L3 have not yet been studied,which is incompatible with the evergrowing demand for overseas Mandarin education.“Instruction language”,as a unique factor of trilingualism compared with bilingualism,is also rarely looked into.In light of the above insufficiency in existing literature,this dissertation studies Dutch-English-Mandarin trilinguals with innovative methodology to answer research questions about trilinguals' mental lexicon representation pattern,routes for L3 conceptual access and role of instruction language herein.Besides,it compares trilinguals with lower and higher L3 levels to map the developmental trajectories of trilinguals' mental lexicon representation and L3 conceptual access.Furthermore,this dissertation builds models and offers insights on foreign language teaching and learning,thus fulfilling its theoretical,methodological and practical values.Methodology used in the current study was motivated by a comprehensive review of previous relevant studies(including 14 relevant models and research methods utilized before),their limitations and goals of this dissertation.To gain scientific and reliable results,interviews,questionnaires and experiment series were all adopted for different purposes.Interviews with teachers in Mandarin programs in Leiden University were carried out the earliest to obtain necessary information about potential participants,and to aid design of language history questionnaires and selection of materials used in experiment series.Language history questionnaires were later distributed to gather more specific knowledge about participants and to assist with recruiting the most appropriate ones.Experiment Series I and II were realized with EPrime and were devoted to investigations into Dutch-English-Mandarin trilinguals' conceptual and lexical representations respectively.Each experiment series had as participants two groups of Dutch-English-Mandarin trilinguals with lower and higher L3 levels,totaling 72 participants,and involved questionnaires in its preparation stage to help pin down the final version of materials for use,and a number of test steps and subdivisions of participants in each of the two groups.Briefly,the following conclusions have been drawn.Firstly,Dutch-English-Mandarin trilinguals store common conceptual elements across the three languages together,with order of direct conceptual link strengths consistent with their language proficiency order.Secondly,Dutch-English-Mandarin trilinguals have separate lexical representations of noncognate vocabularies in the three languages,with lexical links following the order of L1-L2 link,L2-L3 link and L1-L3 link,in terms of their strengths.Thirdly,differences between Dutch-English-Mandarin trilinguals with lower and higher L3 levels lie in the size of Mandarin lexical store,and link strengths instead of whether links exist or not.Trilinguals with higher-level Mandarin have an enlarged lexical store for Mandarin vocabulary and stronger direct concept-L3 link and L1-L3 link than trilinguals with lower-level Mandarin do.Fourthly,language proficiency and instruction language both influence Dutch-English-Mandarin trilinguals' mental lexicon representation and L3 conceptual access.Based on the above conclusions,the following hypotheses and models can be elicited.Firstly,a three-stage hypothesis of lexical link strength changing trajectories in relation to L3 proficiency states that when L2 serves as instruction language of L3,L2-L3 link strength surges to a high level in the very short initial stage of L3 learning,and experiences slow improvement in the two later stages,with the lowest growth rate in the last stage,and that L1-L3 link strength increases not as quickly as L2-L3 link does in the initial stage,but keeps a steady growth in the first two stages,with also the slowest growth in the last stage.This results in the parabola-shaped model illustrating L2-L3 and L1-L3 link strength difference.Secondly,Trilinguals' All-Connected Models of mental lexicon representation and L3 conceptual access in both static and dynamic modes are presented.The most noticeable feature is that all possible links and routes are connected for trilinguals with varied L3 levels,with the divergence lying in link strengths.The current research also offers the following implications.Firstly,foreign language learning can be viewed as a process of updating mental lexicon representation from a psycholinguistic perspective.Secondly,it is advised that L1 act as instruction language of L3 and that awareness should be enhanced and methods further explored to foster stronger direct concept-L3 link and both L2-L3 and L1-L3 lexical links.Besides,in designing and operating experiments into conceptual representation,practice in Experiment Series I of this study can serve as reference,because of meticulous consideration paid for its scientificality,objectivity and feasibility.This dissertation is innovative in the following aspects.It is the first psycholinguistic study into trilingualism with Mandarin as L3;it innovates experimental approach to investigate conceptual representation;it proposes a three-stage hypothesis and a parabola-shaped model to explain role of L2 as instruction language throughout L3 learning process and its contrast with role of L1.Moreover,Trilinguals' All-Connected Models of mental lexicon representation and L3 conceptual access are the first attempts to give detailed descriptions of trilinguals' mental lexicon representation and L3 conceptual access from both static and developmental perspectives.It also sheds light on foreign language teaching and learning and contributes to further improving overseas Chinese language teaching performances and spreading Chinese culture.