A Study On The Storage Units Of English Words And Their Influencing Factors In English-Chinese Bilingual Mental Lexicon

Bilingual mental lexicon refers to the mental repository of all representations that are intrinsically related to L1 and L2 words. It mainly studies how L1 and L2 words are stored and retrieved in an L2 Learner's brain. Nowadays many people whose mother tongue is Chinese are learning English as their second language with the development of human society. Correspondingly, numerous research questions spring up rapidly in the field. Among them, how English (L2) words are stored and retrieved in English-Chinese bilingual mental lexicon holds much attraction from the people interested in second language acquisition, psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics and other fields.The present dissertation studies the storage units of English words and their corresponding influencing factors in English-Chinese bilingual mental lexicon based on the data obtained from psycholinguistic and neurolinguistic experiments. It is divided into six chapters. The first chapter mainly introduces the theoretical background and context related to mental lexicon, especially to English-Chinese bilingual menta lexicon, and presents the research questions, which serves as a theoretical basis for the present study. Chapter two is literature review. The previous studies of the storage units related to L1 and L2 words, especially to English words as L2 words indicate that there exist contradictory findings in previous studies. Based on the review, we hold that the contradictory findings result from the lack of the consideration of influencing factors which can be discussed from two aspects: internal factors and external factors. In the third chapter, we conduct the first lexical naming experiment to explore the storage units of English words in English-Chinese bilingual mental lexicon. Data analyses show that in English-Chinese bilingual mental lexicon, some English words are stored in morphemes, while others as whole words, and that the storage model of English words in English-Chinese bilingual mental lexicon is a mixed one. The following chapter is devoted to the internal factors influencing the English word storage in English-Chinese bilingual mental lexicon with the help of the second lexical naming experiment. It mainly explores the effects of semantic transparency, word length effects and the effects of word classes in storing English words in an L2 learner's brain. The experimental studies demonstrate that semantic transparency of English compound words and word classes of mono-morphemic English words have no significant effects on their storage units, and that word length of English words and word classes of poly-morphemic English words influence their storage units significantly. Chapter five investigates the external factors that influence the storage units of English words in English-Chinese bilingual mental lexicon,which indicates that a learner's English proficiency has no significant effects on the storage of English words, however, an English learner's familiairty with English words influences the storage of L2 words in English-Chinese bilingual mental lexicon significantly. Chapter six is conclusion. We summarize our findings at first. Based on the findings, we establish the model for studying the storage units of English words in English-Chinese bilingual mental lexicon. Then the significance of the present study is discussed from theoretical and practical points of view. Meanwhile, the weak points of the present study are discussed. Finally we argue that the present dissertation acturally offers more questions in the present paper for further studies in the field.