Phonological neighborhood density, phonetic categorization, and vocabulary size differentially affect the phonolexical encoding of easy and difficult L2 segmental contrasts

This study investigated the effect of phonological neighborhood density (PND) on the lexical encoding of perceptually confusable segmental contrasts and the extent to which the precision of encoding is modulated by phonetic categorization and vocabulary size. Korean learners of English and native sp...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Rocca, Brian, Llompart, Miquel, Darcy, Isabelle
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2025
País:España
Institución:Universitat Pompeu Fabra
Repositorio:Repositorio Digital de la UPF
OAI Identifier:oai:dnet:rdupf_______::455a2ffbd8de2bda88d6f44f33c71c21
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/10230/73612
http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S1366728924000865
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Phonolexical encoding
Second language acquisition
L2 phonology
L2 lexicon
Phonological neighborhood density
Descripción
Sumario:This study investigated the effect of phonological neighborhood density (PND) on the lexical encoding of perceptually confusable segmental contrasts and the extent to which the precision of encoding is modulated by phonetic categorization and vocabulary size. Korean learners of English and native speakers of American English completed an auditory lexical decision task that contained words and nonwords with /ɛ/, /æ/, /f/, and /p/ (/æ/ and /f/ do not exist in Korean), two phonetic categorization tasks (/ɛ/−/æ/ and /f/−/p/), and a vocabulary test. For the Korean group, participants’ categorization of /f/−/p/ was the only significant predictor of /f/−/p/ nonword rejection. For /ɛ/−/æ/, nonword versions of high PND words were rejected more accurately than low PND. Additionally, vocabulary size and phonetic categorization significantly interacted so that as perception abilities improve, the benefits that come from having a large vocabulary grow as well.