A Synchronic Study On Chinese English Majors' L2 Mental Lexicon

Mental lexicon,known as the internal lexicon or the mental dictionary,means the presentation form of word knowledge in the internal memory.A number of experts both at home and abroad have made studies on the L2 mental lexicon from its property and characteristics,which include to study the organization of L2 mental lexicon from the perspective of L1 and to use diachronic methods to find the developing pattern of L2 mental lexicon etc.Lots of theories are proposed among which there are valuables discoveries.In the previous studies,some stimuli of high frequency are not chosen and the influence of the parts of speech to responses is also not taken into consideration.In the previous studies about L2 mental lexicon,there are phonological view,semantic view and syntactic view.In addition,there are a lot of scholars who has made many empirical studies on L2 mental lexicon.But for its essence,L2 mental lexicon still needs further studies under different linguistic situations.In addition,studies at home about L2 mental lexicon of Chinese English majors are few at present,which needs further research.Therefore,on the basis of the demerits of previous studies,the present study makes the research on the L2 mental lexicon of Chinese English majors from the perspective of language proficiency and cognitive styles.The present study mainly explores the following four questions:(1)What are the characteristics of the Chinese English majors' English mental lexicon?(2)Would English proficiency affect Chinese English majors' English mental lexicon?(3)Would cognitive styles affect Chinese English majors' English mental lexicon?(4)Would English proficiency and cognitive styles make an interaction effect on Chinese English majors' English mental lexicon?43 freshmen and 46 juniors of English major from Lanzhou Jiaotong university were chosen as subjects in the present study.In order to study Chinese English majors' L2 mental lexicon under different language proficiency,according to the subjects' different grades,juniors are set as the advanced language proficiency group,freshmen are set as the low language proficiency group.In order to study Chinese English majors' L2 mental lexicon under different cognitive styles,through the embedded figure test edited by Meng Qingmao from Beijing University,the cognitivestyles of the the students could be tested out.The continuous word association test was used for the exploration of subjects' L2 mental lexicon.Through the analysis and process of SPSS 19.0 statistical software,several findings are obtained.(1)The general situation of L2 mental lexicon of Chinese English majors is semantic response,which is in line with the semantic view.(2)Language proficiency does make an impact on Chinese English majors' L2 mental lexicon.The percentage of syntagmatic response in the advanced language proficiency group is higher than that in the low language proficiency group.But the percentage of paradigmatic response and clang response of advanced language proficiency group is lower than that in the low language proficiency group.(3)Cognitive style does make an impact on Chinese English majors' L2 mental lexicon.The general situations of the two grades are as follows.For those impacted by field independence(FI),the internal organization of L2 mental lexicon is majorly syntagmatic response.For those impacted by field dependence(FD),the internal organization of L2 mental lexicon is mainly paradigmatic response.(4)By double factor variance analysis,results show that there is an interaction effect on Chinese English majors' L2 mental lexicon.On the basis of the results,several implications could be obtained.First and foremost,Chinese English majors have a poor command of words of high frequency,which displays in the less paradigmatic relation and syntagmatic relation,which shows that Chinese English majors do not know words of high frequencies well and even have difficulty in spelling and pronunciation.Secondly,for learners of different language proficiency,the development of L2 mental lexicon changes constantly which could be predicted as paradigmatic response-syntagmatic response-paradigmatic response.The paradigmatic response in the first stage is impacted by L1 semantic transform while the paradigmatic response in the third stage is established on the basis of having acquiring the semantic concept in the target language.Therefore,teachers should instruct students to develop to more advanced stage.Thirdly,for learners of different cognitive styles,the L2 mental lexicon of students who belong to field dependence is mainly paradigmatic relation while that of those who belong to field independence is majorly syntagmatic relation.Therefore,teachers should conduct the class according to students of different cognitive styles.For students of field independence,teachers should develop their semantic associativeability while for students of field dependence,teachers should develop their syntagmatic and systematic capability.