The Developmental Relationship Between Phonological Short-term Memory And Vocabulary Acquisition

The present study re-examined the developmental relationship between phonological short-term memory and foreign language vocabulary acquisition with Chinese EFL learners as subjects. 107 3^rd, 8^th graders and freshmen participated in the experiment. The results indicated that phonological short-term memory was crucially involved in English vocabulary acquisition for initial English learners. However, with increasing familiarity with English, long-term phonological and lexical-semantic knowledge emerged as a predictor of vocabulary acquisition, but phonological short-term memory remained to be the most predictive. For advanced learners, long-term phonological and lexical-semantic knowledge turned out to be the only predictive factor. Therefore, the relationship between phonological short-term memory and long-term phonological and lexical-semantic knowledge appears to be reciprocal: phonological loop capacity promotes learning of phonological patterns of new words for initial learners, whereas stored knowledge of the phonological structure of the language and lexical knowledge supplement temporary phonological representation and contribute to the learning of new vocabulary for advanced learners.