A Study Of The Mental Lexicon And Its Implications For English Vocabulary Teaching

Vocabulary teaching plays a vital part in language teaching and learning, and thekey to a profound understanding of the nature of vocabulary teaching is anunderstanding of the mental lexicon. This thesis aims at providing a detailed study ofthe mental lexicon, and embodying the idea that vocabulary teaching and learningshould be approached with a view to the major features of the L2 learner's mentallexicon.As is known to all, L1 plays an important role in L2 acquisition. Thus, adiscussion of L1 mental lexicon is crucial to an understanding of the nature of L2mental lexicon. Some important concepts concerning L1 mental lexicon, like theinternal structure of lexical entry, are reviewed and discussed. Then how spokenwords are recognized in the mental lexicon is explained through the descriptions ofthe cohort model and the trace model. The introductions to the hierarchical networkmodel and the spreading activation model enlighten us on how lexical entries arestored and retrieved in the mental lexicon.Based on these discussions, an exploration into the L2 lexical development ismade. As is self-evident, a learner's L1 has an essential influence on his L2, so therelationship between L1 and L2 needs to be clarified. Then whether the L2 mentallexicon integrates with or separates from the L1 mental lexicon is discussed by theexplanations of storage models of the L2 mental lexicon. Stages of L2 lexicaldevelopment (i.e. the formal stage, the L1 lemma mediation stage and the L2...