The mental lexicon

Before we dive into the mental

lexicon …
Let‘s have a look at Onomatopoeia
Onomatopoeia – what is that???

literary device that relies on words that imitate sound

effect words or noise words

Writers choose these words as a way of conveying the

sound of the things that they are describing
It helps them to emphasize something that they're
describing

Examples: boom, meow, crash, sizzle, crunch and buzz.

 Read the following words…
Cook
Sea
White
Baby

What do you associate with these words?

What comes right to your mind?
Draw a word mind/mind map
Listen to the following sounds…
What word would you use to describe this
sound …

Make a list of possible sound descriptions

 Sound descriptions
What is the Spanish sound description for the
crow of a rooster?

What is represented by the following sounds?

Ouch
Wheeze
Fizz
Slosh
 Sound descriptions
What do you think is the English sound
description for (be creative?):

Train tires
The train‘s whistle
 Sound descriptions
Which animal is characterized by the following
sounds?

Bzz
Cheep/chirp/peep
Meow
Cluck cliuck
Cock-a- doodle-doo
Snap
eeyore
But how are words and sounds stored in our
mental lexicon?

The words in our mind are linked

together like a gigantic mulit-dimensional
spiderweb

Each item is connected to another item

word association experiments (the one

we did at the beginning) can show the
organization of the mental lexicon
 The mental lexicon

L1 and L2 lexicons within the same speaker are

clearly linked, phonologically, semantically, and
associationally.
 How is the lexical network organized?

There are two types of links which seem to be

particularly strong among native speakers of English:

Connections between co-ordinates (e.g. salt -- pepper,

butterfly -- moth) and collocational links (e.g. salt
-water, blonde- hair, traffic – jam).

Two further links (although these occur less often) are:

superordination (e.g. butterfly -insect) and synonymy

(e.g. starved - hungry).
 The mental lexicon L1 and L2
Sokmen (1993, quoted in Umamoto) analyzed word
associations of non-native speakers

States that affective associations are more often

observed than coordinates and collocations

According to Sokmen, there is an 'affective' category that

shows a visual image, an opinion, an emotional
response, or a personal past experience:

such as table - study or dark – scared

This suggests that students develop word associations

based on feelings, attitudes, or strong memories and
impressions
Some of the examples might be classified
into 'nonsense’

Association - personal experience

memories
This suggests that there lies a big difference
in word association among individuals
Mental lexicon varies from person to person, but
also it is always changing. McCarthy (1990: 42)
demonstrates this as follows:

The mental lexicon is never static; it is constantly

receiving new input which has to be integrated
into the existing store. Not only do new words
come in but information about existing words is
added too. This is a more obvious phenomenon
for the learner and the L2 lexicon, but it is also
true of L1. The webs of meanings and
associations constantly shift and re-adjust; new
connectins are woven, and old ones
strengthened
Cultural differences in Association:
L1 vs L2
• Hearer converts signs into a concept, concepts
have to be similar so that communication is
successful

Age of acquisition decides if social behaviour

and perception is shaped automatically/naturally

Age decides if L1 and L2 has the same neural

network or if they are rooted in different
networks
Cultural differences in Association:
L1 vs L2
Sociocultural perspective very important for
language learning , e.g. politeness

Linguistic relativity: Spanish preposition in vs

English prepositions

Association of a German person might be

completely different than that of a Spanish
person

Der Schlüssel vs la llave

 Colour associations
I feel blue = I feel depressed

Japanese – the colour of water (light blue)

Colour of a mouse (grey)

There are a lot of colour idioms in the

English language
 Reference
McCarthy, M.(1990). Vocabulary. Oxford: OUP

Umamoto,T. Hypertext and the Mental Lexicon:

Using the Homepage for Learning Vocabulary”
<ttp://www.tom.edisc.jp/research/r022.htm> (22
March 2009)

Sokmen, A.(1993) "Word Association Results."

JALT Journal 15.2: 135-50.
Learning how to Learn
What are things that you know about a
lexical item?

Discuss in groups of 4
What are things that you know about a
lexical item?

Spelling
Number of syllabus
Phonemes (sounds that make up the word)
Which syllables are stressed
Which stresses are stronger or weaker
Parts of speech
Grammatically realted forms
The basic meaning (table= furniture with a flat
surface and legs)
What are things that you know about a
lexical item?
Other meanings
Metaphorical meaning
Negative/positive connotations (junkie vs drug
adict)
Appropriacy in social context
Restrictions on meaning
Immediate collocates (blonde hair)
Common chunks, phrases, idioms it appears (I‘d
rather not say, ride a motorcycle)
translation
What are things that you know about a
lexical item?
False friendes, true friends (cognates, similar to
L1)
Lexical families (words realtedby their topic)
Synonyms/antonyms
Homonyms (same spelling, different meaning:
bank)
Homophones (no vs know)
Prefixes, suffixes (missunderstanding)
Visual image
Associations, feelings
Mnemonics (thigs that help you remember the
word)
 Vocabulary Acquisition

But how can we memorize all this?

How can we trick our mind?
Help our mind?
 Vocabulary acquisition

Scientist found out that a word has to be

repeated between 5-20 times, if possible
in different semantic and syntactic
categories –repetition!!!
story techniques, world map

grouping: parts of body,/kitchen etc. hand out picture

of body. Ss write the word on the item as they learn it

word page:
There was a terrible jam round the ring road
The traffic is really heavy today

What’s holding up the ?

 References
Scrivener, Jim (2005). Learning Teaching.
Oxford: Macmillan.