Lexical Acquisition in a Second Language: Strategy Effectivity

ABSTRACT

Understanding how effective a particular strategy can be in word learning can provide valuable information about the nature of the word learning process. The current study examines 3-5-year-old English speaking monolingual and bilingual children’s ability to learn Spanish words through three word learning strategies. In the Translation condition, the Spanish word will simply be translated to English. In the Syntactic Bootstrapping condition, the Spanish word will be placed in an English sentence. In the Picture condition, participants will be exposed to a picture of the Spanish word. It is predicted that all three conditions will be effective. However, the picture condition will be the most effective as it provides the most information across multiple modalities (Gibbons, Anderson, Smith, Field, & Fischer, 1986), while the translation condition provides the least amount of information and should be the least effective. The syntactic bootstrapping condition should be particularly effective for bilingual children as bilingual children have demonstrated advantages in processing syntactic information (Foursha-Stevenson & Nicoladis, 2011). The effectiveness of these strategies can provide insight into the nature of early word learning and provide useful information to caregivers and educators who are trying to enhance lexical acquisition.

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Contact: acuel129@mtroyal.ca