Lexical Production Research Articles

Midlife dynamics of white matter architecture in lexical production

We aimed to examine the white matter changes associated with lexical production difficulties, beginning in midlife with increased naming latencies. To delay lexical production decline, middle-aged adults may rely on domain-general and language-specific compensatory mechanisms proposed by the LARA model (Lexical Access and Retrieval in Aging). However, the white matter changes supporting these mechanisms remains largely unknown. Using data from the CAMCAN cohort, we employed an unsupervised and data-driven methodology to examine the relationships between diffusion-weighted imaging and lexical production. Our findings indicate that midlife is marked by alterations in brain structure within distributed dorsal, ventral, and anterior cortico-subcortical networks, marking the onset of lexical production decline around ages 53–54. Middle-aged adults may initially adopt a “semantic strategy” to compensate for lexical production challenges, but this strategy seems compromised later (ages 55–60) as semantic control declines. These insights underscore the interplay between domain-general and language-specific processes in the trajectory of lexical production performance in healthy aging and hint at potential biomarkers for language-related neurodegenerative pathologies.

Individual differences in L2 proficiency moderate the effect of L1 translation knowledge on L2 lexical retrieval

Abstract The effect of translation knowledge on bilingual lexical production is mixed, with some studies showing translation interference and others showing facilitation. We considered the roles of first-language (L1) translation knowledge and second-language (L2) proficiency in lexical retrieval, testing predictions of the competition for selection, frequency lag and activation boosting accounts. In experiment 1, 54 highly proficient Spanish–English bilinguals named pictures of low-frequency nouns in English (L2). Spanish (L1) translation knowledge and English proficiency had an interactive effect on tip-of-the-tongue experiences with increased L1 translation interference at low levels of L2 proficiency and facilitation at high levels of L2 proficiency, consistent with combined predictions of competition for selection and activation boosting accounts. Experiment 2 confirmed that confounding lexical variables did not drive translation effects. By examining individual differences within bilinguals, we found support for multiple mechanisms that play a role in bilingual lexical retrieval that were not evident at the group level.

Lexical production and cognitive control in sequential bilinguals immersed in two different contexts of language use

Recent investigations have highlighted that the linguistic characteristics of the contexts in which bilinguals are immersed might account for processing differences both at the lexical and cognitive levels. The present study examined the extent to which verbal and non-verbal cognitive performance in bilinguals varied as a function of two different contexts of language use: separate or integrated. The separate context was characterized by participants’ use of Spanish and English in specific situations and with different interlocutors, whereas the integrated context was characterized by the frequent use of both languages in the same situations and with the same interlocutors. Participants were two groups of young Mexican-born sequential Spanish-L1–English-L2 bilinguals ( n = 50, 34 females), who reported either the separate or integrated use of both languages. We found a positive correlation between overall linguistic exposure and the number of words produced in English in a Category Fluency task for bilinguals in the integrated context. Our results also showed that more frequent code-switching positively correlated with the magnitude of the interference effect as measured with a Flanker task, but only for participants in the separate context. These results suggest that the separate or more integrated use of the more dominant language (L1) and the less dominant one (L2) can impact bilinguals’ performance differently in verbal and non-verbal cognitive tasks.

On experimental lexical production in Spanish as L1 and L2.

This study investigates lexical production in Spanish as L1 and L2 in an experimental context. Based on a series of lexical availability tasks, words produced by native and non-native speakers of Spanish are contrasted in relation to test modality, oral or written, and response time. The production of native speakers is characterized by being significantly higher and more accurate, while L2 responses reflect lower lexical competence, the influence of L1 and divergent acquisition patterns. Although previous studies had not found significant differences between the number of responses produced orally and in writing, we find that such differences exist, but that they are conditioned by the response time, which affects differently the production in L1 and in L2, although their evolution describes a similar trajectory in both cases. This methodological factor would also cause the neutralization of the qualitative differences between oral and written responses in both groups of participants.

A Corpus Based Study on Productivity Measurement of Suffixes -ous and -ish

In recent years, a growing number of studies have been conducted on the productivity of word formation. -ous and -ish are common adjective suffixes which have the same general meaning of to be similar to something and are consequently regarded as synonymous affixes. However, most prior studies have addressed lexical productivity from a single perspective, such as diachronic analysis or synchronic measurement, while few have combined the above aspects to conduct multi-angle studies. The comprehensive research perspective adopted in this paper provides several novel ideas for developing a further understanding of the productivity of the two affixes, and even for the wider study of morphological productivity.

Bilingual Science Lexicon of Pre-Serviced Primary School Teachers

Bilingual teaching has experienced rapid growth in the Spanish educational panorama and numerous university programmes have emerged with the aim of training future CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) teachers. However, there is little research assessing the level of linguistic competence in Spanish and foreign languages of future teachers, especially those who are studying for a bilingual degree. Although this work is part of a broader project that analyses bilingual lexical competence in subjects related to the Social Sciences and Experimental Sciences, we focus on the analysis of lexical availability of content related to the teaching of science. The sample consisted of 46 students of the Degree in Primary Education at the University of Extremadura. Using a lexical availability test, lexical production in Spanish and English is analysed and compared to determine whether the fact of studying in English affects the acquisition and consolidation of lexical knowledge in Spanish. The results show that there are no significant differences in lexical production between Spanish and English. In addition to the quantitative data, results from the qualitative analysis are presented, analysing the most available words and the organisation of the lexicon in both languages.

English as a heritage language: The effects of input patterns and contact with Hebrew

Purpose: This study examines the extent to which language skills of adult speakers of heritage language (HL) English in a Hebrew-speaking society are affected by individual HL input patterns and cross-linguistic influence. Methodology: Adult HL-English speakers who grew up in families with one ( N = 22) or two ( N = 25) English-speaking parents were compared to a baseline group of native English speakers who emigrated to Israel as adults ( N = 20). Data: Proficiencies in morphosyntactic and lexical domains were measured based on formal test performance and error types and frequencies in narratives. Detailed histories of speakers’ linguistic input were documented. Findings: Results showed near-ceiling performance across the three groups in the morphosyntactic domain, while significant differences were observed between the baseline and HL groups in the lexical domain. No differences were found between HL-English speakers who grew up in families with one or two English-speaking parents. Individual HL input patterns explained a larger proportion of the variance in the lexical abilities, compared to morphosyntactic ones. Evidence of cross-linguistic influence from Hebrew was not detected in the morphosyntactic domain, but only in the lexicon, in the form of minor lexical production errors and calques. Originality: The HL examined here was English which, unlike other HLs, is heard and used in a variety of contexts outside the home. In most previous studies on HLs, English was the dominant societal language. Implications: The results suggest that morphosyntactic divergences, unlike lexical divergences, are not necessarily found in all HLs—morphosyntactic structures acquired in childhood, reinforced periodically in the societal environment, may be well-maintained because of the language’s ubiquity and relatively sparse morphology.

The effects of time duration and bilingualism/trilingualism on second-language production

AbstractThis investigation explored the effects of time duration and bilingualism/trilingualism on speakers' language production. A word-naming task was conducted under three conditions—700 ms, 1,000 ms, and unlimited time. The results showed that the participants incurred fewer errors and successfully corrected errors at 1,000 ms and unlimited time; the bilingual/trilingual advantage was identified in error self-repairs at 1,000 ms; and trilinguals were more strategic in correcting errors than monolinguals and bilinguals. This suggests that unlimited time did not ensure higher accuracy in lexical production and efficient error correction, and that 1,000 ms was the optimal timeframe for processing single monosyllabic Chinese characters.

Lexical production and innovation in child and adult Russian Heritage speakers dominant in English and Hebrew

AbstractThe present study investigated lexical production and innovation of 202 participants across six groups: child and adult heritage speakers of Russian, dominant in Hebrew or American English, and monolingual Russian-speaking children and adults. Understanding quantitative performance across these six groups was intended to provide a comprehensive perspective on heritage language (HL) development, while comparing the participants’ qualitative non-target response patterns would elucidate the organization of the HL lexicon. We assessed the production of Russian nouns and verbs using a naming task. We then considered the effects of input at the societal and lexical levels (focusing on word frequency and age of acquisition). Our findings are discussed in terms of accounts of HL developmental trajectories: monolingual-like trajectory, frozen lexical development, attrition, and new language variety in a contact situation. The results presented no evidence for attrition, while elements of the other three trajectories were found in our quantitative and qualitative analyses.

Russian heritage language development in narrative contexts: Evidence from pre- and primary-school children in Norway, Germany, and the UK.

The present study aims at obtaining a comprehensive picture of language development in Russian heritage language (RHL) by bringing together evidence from previous investigations focusing on morphosyntax and global accent as well as from a newly conducted analysis of a less-studied domain-lexical development. Our investigation is based on a narrative sample of 143 pre- and primary-school bilinguals acquiring RHL in Norway, Germany, and the United Kingdom. We performed a multiple-way analysis of lexical production in RHL across the different national contexts, across both languages (heritage and societal), also comparing bilinguals and monolinguals. The results revealed a clear and steady increase with age in narrative length and lexical diversity for all bilingual groups in both of their languages. The variation in lexical productivity as well as the differences between the bilingual groups and between bilinguals and monolinguals were attributed to input factors with language exposure in the home and age of starting preschool as the major predictors. We conclude that, overall, the results from lexical, grammatical, and phonological acquisition in RHL support the view that having longer exclusive or uninterrupted exposure to a heritage language in early childhood is beneficial for its development across domains.

Left-behind experience and language proficiency predict narrative abilities in the home language of Kam-speaking minority children in China.

Studies have documented that child experiences such as external/environmental factors as well as internal factors jointly affect acquisition outcomes in child language. Thus far, the findings have been heavily skewed toward Indo-European languages and children in the Western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic (WEIRD) societies. By contrast, this study features an understudied minority language Kam, and a group of so-called left-behind children in China growing up in a unique social-communicative environment. Fifty-five bilingual children aged 5-9 acquiring Kam as home language were assessed using the Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives (LITMUS MAIN). Twenty-three "two parents-left" children (mean age = 6;8, range: 5;0-9;2) remained in rural areas while both parents went to cities for employment, and they were raised by their grandparents. Thirty-two were "one parent-left" peers (mean age = 7;3, range: 5;0-9;3) who also resided in rural areas but were raised by one parent. Oral narrative texts were analysed for macrostructure based on story structure (SS), story complexity (SC) and internal state terms (IS). The study examined whether and how narrative production is predicted by internal factors such as chronological age and linguistic proficiency of a child and an external factor such as left-behind experience. Four measures were scored as outcome measures: SS, SC, IS type, IS token. Four measures were taken as predictors: chronological age, left-behind experience, scores in a lexical production task, and scores in a sentence repetition task tapping expressive morphosyntactic competence. Results showed that left-behind experience consistently predicted all four outcome measures, where the "two parents-left" children scored significantly lower than their "one parent-left" peers. Expressive vocabulary scores predicted three measures: SS, SC, and IS Token. Expressive morphosyntactic scores predicted SS and SC. Age, by contrast, did not predict any outcome measure. These findings suggested that being left-behind by both parents may be a negative prognostic indicator for the development and maintenance of heritage language abilities in ethnic minority children. We further discussed the conceptual significance of what it means for a child to be left-behind, by relating to more basic external factors in language development, including caregiver educational level, and amount of home language and literacy support by the caretakers.

Developing early lexical composition in Mandarin-speaking children: A longitudinal study.

This study investigated the developmental pattern of early lexical production and composition in Mandarin-speaking children. Forty Mandarin-speaking children and their parents participated in this one-and-a-half-year longitudinal study, and naturalistic samples of parent-to-child speech in toy play were collected when the children were 1;8, 2;2, and 3;0. The results showed that children's lexical production increased significantly between ages 1;8 and 3;0. The proportion of closed-class words increased significantly with age, whereas the proportion of common nouns showed the inverse pattern, indicating the role of grammatical words increased as the children grew. Furthermore, nouns and verbs were predominant in Mandarin-speaking children between ages 1;8 and 3;0, and Mandarin-speaking children used more verbs than nouns at 2;2 and 3;0 in the toy play context. The longitudinal study clarifies early lexical development in Mandarin-speaking children, which provides a valuable contrast for different language systems.

Lexical production and organisation in L2 EFL and L3 EFL learners: a distributional semantic analysis of verbal fluency

ABSTRACT Research is scarce about the lexical processes undertaken by thousands of L2 learners worldwide who already command one or more languages. Some aspects involved in lexical organisation and production, such as clustering and switching, have been traditionally approached through manual methods, which depend on subjective judgments of semantic relatedness between words. The present study seeks to provide a more objective exploration of EFL lexical production and organisation strategies of two rather similar groups of 12th grade learners of EFL as L2 and L3 via a distributional semantic analysis of semantic fluency. In addition to common measures of vocabulary performance, such as number of words produced, a series of lexical organisation and production strategies along with global and local semantic relatedness metrics will be examined. No differences were found about word frequency. While the L3 group used more word classes and cognates, and produced more idiosyncratic responses, the L2 group excelled in most semantic relatedness variables. These results might be due to the presence of the third language in the L3 group, which might be partly interacting with the other background languages. Evidence on these aspects may inform the development of precise language learning strategies adapted to the learner’s linguistic profile.

Influence of planning time and task type on lexis in L2 oral performance

Building up a stock of vocabulary with operational sufficiency is a formidable task for L2 learners. An adequate portion of their vocabulary needs to be readily accessible and retrievable for productive use in real communication. This study investigated the possible effects of the availability of planning time and task type on L2 learners’ lexical production in oral performance. It employed a 2x2 experimental design, where there were two independent variables (planning time and task type), each with two levels (no planning and with planning; descriptive and narrative). Participants were 102 (51 females and 51 males) intermediate level Preparatory School university students at an English-medium university in Turkey. The 51 dyads performed oral descriptive and narrative tasks under no planning and with planning conditions. The oral production of the participants were analyzed using two major measures: lexical complexity, and lexical accuracy. Lexical complexity was measured by word length in syllables and by lexical richness/variation with sub-measures of type-token ratio, lexical word range, grammatical word range, lexical-to-grammatical ratio and lexical density. Lexical accuracy was measured by the number of error-free clauses. The results revealed that lexical use is predominantly determined by task type rather than planning time. Narrative tasks elicited more complex and richer vocabulary than descriptive tasks. Availability of planning time appeared to positively influence the accuracy of lexis used, but at the cost of lower degree of richness/variation. The results also indicated that a focus on lexis could be induced through task design, which fosters various aspects of L2 lexical use.

Assessing receptive vocabulary using state‑of‑the‑art natural language processing techniques

Abstract Semantic embedding approaches commonly used in natural language processing such as transformer models have rarely been used to examine L2 lexical knowledge. Importantly, their performance has not been contrasted with more traditional annotation approaches to lexical knowledge. This study used NLP techniques related to lexical annotations and semantic embedding approaches to model the receptive vocabulary of L2 learners based on their lexical production during a writing task. The goal of the study is to examine the strengths and weaknesses of both approaches in understanding L2 lexical knowledge. Findings indicate that transformer approaches based on semantic embeddings outperform linguistic annotations and Word2vec models in predicting L2 learners’ vocabulary scores. The findings help to support the strength and accuracy of semantic-embedding approaches as well as their generalizability across tasks when compared to linguistic feature models. Limitations to semantic-embedding approaches, especially interpretability, are discussed.

「朝鮮館譯語」의 의미장 접근법으로 본 중국 사이관(회동관) 역관의 한국(조선)어 교육 방법 연구

Vocabulary in foreign language teaching may determine the success or failure of language learning when step-by-step education progresses as a basic element of communication. Thus, its importance is being recognized even in the vocabulary education field in Korean language education. Various discussions are ongoing as to a specific vocabulary teaching-learning method available for a synergistic effect on learning.
 This study sought a method of vocabulary education to expand the vocabulary of international students in the country. The characteristics and format of vocabulary books that are shown in ancient Chinese Yeokhakseo documents were scrutinized. Especially through the construction and structure in 「Joseongwan-yeogeo」(朝鮮館 譯語), which is the teaching material of Joseon-gwan within 『Hwayi-yeokeo』(華 夷譯語) as the textbook of Sai-gwan that is the training institution for interpreters in the Ming Dynasty of China. The structure and classification in‘vocabulary-semantic’were examined using Sino-Korean words with the high lexical production in Korean language education. Additionally, the aim was to identify the possibility of the desirable Joseon language(朝鮮語) vocabulary education and instruction in 「Joseongwan-yeogeo」(朝鮮館譯語) in terms of modern foreign-language vocabulary education through the teaching-learning comparison with the“semantic field approach”that is a traditional lexical access education and the modern vocabulary teaching method in China.
 This paper discusses the diverse methods that find effective vocabulary teaching methods and vocabulary education in Korean language education. At the point in time that arranges an alternative plan for Korean language education that will satisfy the characteristics and needs of learners in each language sphere, we discuss vocabulary use and education seen in 「Joseongwan-yeogeo」(朝鮮館譯語), the teaching material of Joseon language in Sai-gwan(Hoedong-gwan) interpreter during the Ming Dynasty of China. This is considered an opportunity for follow-up research along with a suggestion of the modern Korean-language vocabulary education.

A modified procedure for naming 332 pictures and collecting norms: Using tangram pictures in psycholinguistic studies.

Tangram pictures are abstract pictures which may be used as stimuli in various fields of experimental psychology and are often used in the field of dialogue psychology. The present study provides the first norms for a set of 332 tangram pictures. These pictures were standardized on a set of variables classically used in the literature on cognitive processes, such as visual perception, language, and memory: name agreement, image agreement, familiarity, visual complexity, image variability, and age of acquisition. Furthermore, norms for concreteness were also provided owing to the influence of this variable on the processes involved in lexical production. Correlational analyses on all variables were performed on the data collected from French native speakers. This new set of standardized pictures constitutes a reliable database for researchers when they select tangram pictures. Given the abstract nature of tangram pictures, this paper also discusses the similarities and differences with the literature online drawings, and highlights their value for dialogue psychology studies, for psycholinguistics studies, and for cognitive psychology in general.

Preserved anatomical bypasses predict variance in language functions after stroke

The severity of post-stroke aphasia is related to damage to white matter connections. However, neural signaling can route not only through direct connections, but also along multi-step network paths. When brain networks are damaged by stroke, paths can bypass around the damage to restore communication. The shortest network paths between regions could be the most efficient routes for mediating bypasses. We examined how shortest-path bypasses after left hemisphere strokes were related to language performance. Regions within and outside of the canonical language network could be important in aphasia recovery. Therefore, we innovated methods to measure the influence of bypasses in the whole brain.Distinguishing bypasses from all residual shortest paths is difficult without pre-stroke imaging. We identified bypasses by finding shortest paths in subjects with stroke that were longer than the most reliably observed connections in age-matched control networks. We tested whether features of those bypasses predicted scores in four orthogonal dimensions of language performance derived from a principal components analysis of a battery of language tasks. The features were the length of each bypass in steps, and how many bypasses overlapped on each individual direct connection. We related these bypass features to language factors using support vector regression, a technique that extracts robust relationships in high-dimensional data analysis. The support vector regression parameters were tuned using grid-search cross-validation.We discovered that the length of bypasses reliably predicted variance in lexical production (R2 = .576) and auditory comprehension scores (R2 = .164). Bypass overlaps reliably predicted variance in Lexical Production scores (R2 = .247). The predictive elongation features revealed that bypass efficiency along the dorsal stream and ventral stream were most related to Lexical Production and Auditory Comprehension, respectively. Among the predictive bypass overlaps, increased bypass routing through the right hemisphere putamen was negatively related to lexical production ability.

Teaching Mode for English Writing in Senior High School Based on Lexical Production

Teaching Mode for English Writing in Senior High School Based on Lexical Production

Lexical tone perception and production in Cantonese-speaking children with childhood apraxia of speech: a pilot study

ABSTRACT Childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) is a paediatric motor speech disorder. We investigated the lexical tone perception and production abilities of children with CAS and the relationships between the two. Three children with CAS, aged between 3;7 and 5;8, were given the Cantonese Tone Identification Test (CANTIT) and the Hong Kong Cantonese Articulation Test (HKCAT) for assessment of tone perception and production, respectively. Accuracy and error patterns were investigated based on their performance on the two tests. Correlation analysis was performed on children’s perception and production scores. Two children scored at the lowest rank on the CANTIT, while one child obtained a Z score of 0. All children scored three standard deviations below the mean on the HKCAT. No statistical differences were found among the six tones with respect to perception accuracy, H(5) = 3.731, p = 0.589. Error analysis showed that children with CAS demonstrated more confusion on perceiving tones compared with TD peers. There were no main effects for task (F(1,2) = 0.040, p = 0.859) or tone (F(5,10 = 0.997, p = 0.467); nor were there task or tone interaction effects on perception versus production accuracy (F(5,10) = 1.772, p = 0.206). Tone perception and production accuracy were not significantly correlated (r2 = 0.181, p = 0.078). Tone perception deficits were evident in two out of three children with CAS, while all children had lexical tone production difficulties. In this small sample, tone production was more universally affected than tone perception.