THE INFLUENCE OF PHONOLOGICAL SIMILARITY IN ADULTS LEARNING WORDS IN A SECOND LANGUAGE

Abstract

Neighborhood density refers to the number of similar sounding words to a target word (Luce & Pisoni, 1998) and influences first language word learning in adults learning English (Storkel, Armbruster, & Hogan, 2006). There are two processes in word learning: lexical configuration and lexical engagement (Leach & Samuel, 2007). Lexical configuration refers to the speaker learning the sounds of the word. Lexical engagement refers to when the novel word is integrated into the lexicon and participates in lexical processes such as competition. The present work is the first to examine how neighborhood density influences lexical configuration and lexical engagement in second language word learning. Third-semester Spanish students performed four word learning tasks. The present results suggest neighborhood density influences lexical configuration and lexical engagement where words from a dense neighborhood are learned more accurately than words from a sparse neighborhood. The psycholinguistic and pedagogical implications of these findings are discussed.