Listening experience and phonetic-to-lexical mapping in L2
In contrast to initial L1 vocabularies, which of
necessity depend largely on heard exemplars, L2
vocabulary construction can draw on a variety of
knowledge sources. This can lead to richer stored
knowledge about the phonology of the L2 than the
listener's prelexical phonetic processing capacity
can support, and thus to mismatch between the
level of detail required for accurate lexical mapping
and the level of detail delivered by the prelexical
processor. Experiments on spoken word recognition
in L2 have shown that phonetic contrasts which are
not reliably perceived are represented in the lexicon
nonetheless. This lexical representation of contrast
must be based on abstract knowledge, not on
veridical representation of heard exemplars. New
experiments confirm that provision of abstract
knowledge (in the form of spelling) can induce
lexical representation of a contrast which is not
reliably perceived; but also that experience (in the
form of frequency of occurrence) modulates the
mismatch of phonetic and lexical processing. We
conclude that a correct account of word recognition
in L2 (as indeed in L1) requires consideration of
both abstract and episodic information.
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