Lexical Access in L2 Speech Production: a Controlled Serial Search Task
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
DOI: 10.5007/2175-8026.2017v70n3p245 LEXICAL ACCESS IN L2 SPEECH PRODUCTION: A CONTROLLED SERIAL SEARCH TASK Gicele Vergine Vieira* Instituto Federal Catarinense Blumenau, BR Abstract When it comes to lexical access in L2 speech production, working memory (WM) seems to play a central role, as less automatized procedures require more WM capacity to be executed (Prebianca, 2007). With that in mind, this article aims at claiming that bilingual lexical access qualiies as a controlled serial strategic search task susceptible to individual diferences in WM capacity. Evidence in support of such claim is provided by the results of Prebianca (2010) study conducted so as to investigate the relationship between L2 lexical access, WMC and L2 proiciency. Prebianca (2010) indings indicate that bilingual lexical access entails underlying processes such as cue generation, set delimitation, serial search and monitoring, which to be carried out require the allocation of attention. Attention is limited and, as a result, only higher spans were able to perform these underlying processes automatically. Key-words: L2 speech production; Lexical access; Controlled serial search; Working memory capacity. 1 Introduction are highly automatic processes that do not depend on attention to be performed. he production of intentional and luent speech1 As proposed by Levelt, the core process of speaking has been said to require the orchestration of a number of is word selection upon which all other linguistic mental operations involving conceptual and linguistic processes operate. Word selection or lexical access,2 processes (Levelt, 1989). From an information- as is usually referred to in the literature on speech processing perspective (Shifrin; Schneider, 1977), production, is said to occur under competition. hat some of these processes are performed automatically is, when a concept speciied in the conceptual message, and some are performed under attentional control. In activates a word in the mental lexical, this activation his L1 adult speech production model, Levelt (1989) spreads along the lexico-semantic network, and several acknowledges that conceptualizing a message to be related words (words that share meaning or any other verbalized in one’s language and monitoring the output related characteristic) also become activated, competing of such verbalization are processes that require attention for selection. he extent to which such competition to be executed, since they are controlled by the speaker interferes with the selection of the appropriate word is himself. On the other hand, linguistic processes such as said to be related to how strong the connections between selecting and retrieving words to express the conceptual words are (de Groot, 1992). How this competition is message, giving the message sound and articulating it, solved by the lexical retrieval system is still a matter of * Doutora em Letras Inglês pela Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, com ênfase em Linguística Aplicada. Coordena o grupo de pesquisa Linguagem, Cognição e Tecnologia. Investiga a aquisição de língua estrangeira (L2) mediada pelo uso da tecnologia, bem como os aspectos cognitivos de aquisição e uso da L2. Atua como professora no ensino médio integrado, nos cursos de graduação e no Programa de Pós-Graduação em Educação do Instituto Federal Catarinense. Seu e-mail é [email protected]. Esta obra tem licença Creative Commons 246 Gicele Vergine Vieira, Lexical access in L2 speech production: a controlled serial search task contention but, more importantly, because accessing items in the intended and non-intended languages. he words in L1 is so automatized, few selection errors question of whether lexical items of both languages are made and speech production generally proceeds compete for selection has received great attention in smoothly to articulation. bilingual research. here is nowadays plenty of evidence he panorama seems to be a very diferent one when in favor of a language non-speciic approach to lexical speech is produced in L2.3 It is now widely accepted selection. On this view, items of both languages that that L2 speakers hold a great amount of explicit and share the same characteristics with the preverbal underdeveloped knowledge of the second language, message are activated, competing for selection at the thus resorting to more controlled processing, especially semantic and phonological level. Cascading models in initial learning4 phases (Kormos, 2006). Because of L1 speech production have shown that not only the the L2 lacks automatization, speech production in the selected items send activation to their corresponding second language runs serially, thus causing L2 speech phonemes, but also non-selected ones have their to be more hesitant, disluent and open to L1 inluence phonological information activated (Morsella and (Poulisse, 1997; Fortkamp, 2000; Kormos, 2006). Word Miozzo, 2002). retrieval, in this scenario, besides sufering from lack of As an attempt to address the issues involved in L2 automaticity, is also afected by lexical representations speech production, Kormos (2006) proposed an L2 that lack strong connections with the L2 conceptual speaking model based on Levelt et al.’s (1999) revised system, forming a less integrated lexicon in relation to blueprint for the speaker. In this recent model, Kormos L1(Kormos, 2006; de Groot, 1995), and by competition makes important assumptions regarding knowledge from other L2 and L1 related items. Serial processing automatization in L2 and the way it afects speech of explicitly stored retrieval procedures, weaker lexical production processes. According to her, because several representations, and lexical competition render L2 lexical encoding procedures are not fully automatized in lexical access an attention-demanding task. L2, bilingual speakers must have access to an additional Although L1 speech production models such as knowledge store – a declarative store for syntactic Levelt (1989) and Levelt et al. (1999) have provided L2 rules. With increasing proiciency the declarative a comprehensive account of the mental/cognitive knowledge of L2 rules may become automatized and processes involved in monolingual lexical access, several then lexical processing may develop on a continuum, issues remain unresolved when turning to bilingual from serial to parallel processing, allowing for a more speech processing. Adding an L2 component to L1 native-like speech production. As long as speakers models is far from being an easy and straightforward depend on the use of declarative knowledge, lexical solution, for it raises a bunch of questions particularly encoding can only be serially carried out, requiring in relation to message conceptualization, mental lexicon more attentional control to be executed. organization and lexical retrieval, such as language- Research on bilingual lexical access and working speciicity, the storage of L1 and L2 lexical items in the memory capacity have shown that accessing and same network, and thus, lexical competition. retrieving words in an L2 under competition of In this sense, it is important to remember that related lexical representations in the language in use the retrieval of lexical items is directly afected by the (usually the speaker’s L1) is an attention-demanding way speech is conceptualized and the way the mental cognitive task subject to individual diferences in goal lexicon is conceived. his is particularly true because it maintenance and inhibition of distracting information is the concepts speciied in the preverbal message that (Kroll, Michael, Tokowicz and Dufour, 2002; Tokowicz, will determine which lexical items will be selected to Michael and Kroll, 2004; Christofels, de Groot and verbalize the message one wants to express. hese items Kroll, 2006). Most of these studies, however, have will then be retrieved on the basis of their primitives or not examined the extent to which WMC afects L2 another mental representation and may activate related lexical retrieval under within-language competition Ilha do Desterro v. 70, nº 3, p. 245-264, Florianópolis, set/dez 2017 247 of semantically-related words at diferent levels of information which is relevant to the execution of the proiciency. In other words, the empirical evidence task by ignoring irrelevant stimuli. gathered so far does not tell us which processes are he controlled attention view of WMC is adopted common to both bilingual lexical access (when retrieval as a the major theoretical framework in the present entails L2 response competition) and WMC that cause discussion because it is closely related to the cognitive them to be related or whether those processes change task being addressed, namely lexical access. For the with increased proiciency in L2. sake of this discussion, lexical access involves naming Given that retrieving words in L2 is not only about a picture in the face of interference. To be able to blocking L1 activation but also about ighting of L2 execute this task eiciently, L2 speakers need to block lexical competitors by adequately delimiting the search interference in order to keep the main objective of set and monitoring for adequate retrieval within a the task active in WM and, thus, retrieve the lexical language system under development, in which lexical items from long-term memory quickly and accurately. connections lack rich conceptual speciications and Being able to suppress interfering stimuli is essential to lexical retrieval procedures are not yet fully automatized perform the