خلاصة:
The present study endeavors to unravel the enigma of the psycholinguistic mechanisms underpinning bilingual mental lexicon by analyzing the issue of L1 lexicalization as a construct epitomizing an overarching framework. It involves78 juniors at the Islamic Azad University, Roudehen Branch. The study inspects the impact of the interventionist/noninterventionist treatments on both sets of lexicalized and nonlexicalized items pedagogically. It further tries to bring the bilingual mental lexicon under scrutiny by investigating the cross-linguistic issue of L1 lexicalization psycholinguistically. The results, obtained through the independent t-test, indicate a significant difference between the two groups dealing with both sets of items. The paired t-test shows that the learners had a greater degree of familiarity with lexicalized items at pretesting, and they were more successful in learning lexicalized items at posttesting. However, no significant difference was found in gain scores in the two groups. The descriptive analyses indicate that the number of lexicalized words produced productively was approximately two times as many as the number of nonlexicalized items at the same level in the interventionist group. Moreover, the number of nonlexicalized items learned partially was much greater in comparison with their lexicalized counterparts. The results have implications for EFL methodologists and theoreticians.
ملخص الجهاز:
In fact, the significance of grasping the psycholinguistic processes and mechanisms underlying the development of lexical competence is well- confirmed and enduring as a core issue involving cognitive perplexities in bilingual studies (Augustin Liach, 2011; Chacon-Beltran, Abello-Contesse Torreblanca-Lopez, 2010; French Jacquet, 2004; Jiang, 2004; Paribakht, 2005; Schwartz, Yeh, Shaw, 2008; Stringer, 2008; Wesche Paribakht, 1996; Wesche Paribakht, 2010).
Only in the last few years, have researchers in adult psycholinguistics become enthusiastic to analyze lexical acquisition from the first and second language perspective with the intention of refining the existing mental models pertinent to word processing in its ‘steady state’ (Gaskel Ellis, 2009).
The cross- linguistic investigations related to L2 vocabulary achievement are primarily devoted to the analysis of the impact of various L1 and L2 orthographies on different facets of learners’ lexical ability like lexical-processing modes, strategies, and styles as well as lexical choices (Chikamatsu, 1996; Ghahremani-Ghajar Masny, 1999; Wade-Woolley, 1999).
Moreover, the effectiveness of morphological awareness as a fruitful vocabulary building tool was demonstrated in several studies related to first language acquisition (Hanson, 1993; Nagy Anderson, 1984; Rispens, McBride-Chang, Reitsma, 2007; White, Power, White, 1989).
Accordingly, the results regarding the high rate of partial achievement dealing with the nonlexicalized items in this group might be related to the fact that the treatment provided as morphological awareness was facilitative in helping the learners to identify only parts of meaning in an initial lemma construction; furthermore, the idea of lexical quality hypothesis could be employed as another theoretical justification supporting the findings of this study regarding the issue of L1 lexicalization.