| Chinese English bilinguals refer to those Chinese native speakers who can alsospeak English. With the increase of the number of Chinese English bilinguals, anincreasing number of studies concerning their language use were conducted. Mentallexicon organization is the organization or connection pattern of words in languageusers’ mental lexicon, which is inaccessible to human eyes. Thus researchers in thefield of psycholinguistics both at home and abroad mainly employed word associationtest to investigate language users’ mental lexicon organization. During the recentdecades, many empirical studies employing WA test have been conducted to compareL1and L2mental lexicon organization, with the aim of finding out whether L1andL2mental lexicon is homogeneous or heterogeneous. Moreover, an increasingattention has been paid to those factors that may exert influences on mental lexiconorganization. Among various studies on mental lexicon organization, that ofChinese-English bilinguals is one of the hot topics. However, most of the studies areconducted through using a list of stimulus words, consisting mainly of content wordssuch as nouns, verbs and adjectives with few studies employing formulaic sequenceswith similar meaning as stimulus words. Formulaic sequences refer to theconventional or formulaic language in daily life and the oral or written language withrelatively fixed constructions in syntax and discourse (Li Meixia2014). As one typeof formulaic sequences, logical resultative formulae refer to the formularizedlanguage expressing cause and effect relations between two situations and events (Li&Jiao2012). Researchers in the linguistic field (e.g., Halliday&Hasan1976;Chapman1980; Stukker&Sanders2012) studied on them mainly from theperspective of discourse use, acquisition and comprehension. No study has everexplored their organization pattern in mental lexicon. So what is the organizationpattern of logical resultative formulae in the mental lexicon of Chinese Englishbilinguals? And what factors may exert influences on the organization pattern?In response to the above issues, the current study, from the perspective ofpsycholinguistics, by employing behavioral experimental method, intends toexplore the mental lexicon organization of a group of words with similarmeaning, namely Chinese and English logical resultative formulae. Two groupsof Chinese English bilinguals,70English major graduates and70second yearhigh school students participated in the study. Their response associates to the15 CLRFs (Chinese logical resultative formulae) and13ELRFs (English logicalresultative formulae) in word association test were collected and classified. And itfurther examined the contrast between L1and L2LRF organization patternsand those factors that may influence the organization patterns includinglanguage proficiency, the frequency of occurrence and the semantic type ofLRFs.Five findings can be seen from this research.1. In general, LRF organizationin mental lexicon demonstrates the following hierarchy: syntagmatic pattern is inthe dominant position, followed by paradigmatic and phonological/form pattern.Syntagmatic pattern is the most advanced LRF organization pattern in language users’mental lexicon, mainly existing in L1LRF mental lexicon. It is characterized bylanguage users’ flexible language use in practice. Paradigmatic pattern, mainly shownin advanced L2LRF mental lexicon, demonstrates language users’ good knowledge oflexical meaning. Phonological/form pattern, mainly shown in intermediate learners’L2LRF mental lexicon, is characterized by language users’ recognition of words stillon phonological or form level.2. The comparison between L1and L2LRForganization shows that there are both quantitative and qualitative differences.The difference between intermediate learners’ L1and L2LRF organization pattern isrelatively larger than that in advanced learners.3. As for language proficiency, L2proficiency exercises significant influences on L2LRF organization pattern andL1proficiency exerts smaller effect. There are both quantitative and qualitativedifferences between advanced and intermediate learners’ L2LRF organization. Withthe increase of L2proficiency, L2LRF is more likely to be organized in paradigmaticand even syntagmatic pattern. By contrast, there is mainly quantitative difference intheir L1LRF organization.4. LRF frequency exerts influences mainly on L2LRForganization. Specifically, the higher the LRF frequency is, the more likely the LRFis stored in syntagmatic and paradigmatic patterns, and the less likely stored inphonological/form patterns. Additionally, frequency of occurrence can also exertsome effects on intermediate learners’ L1LRF mental lexicon.5. As for theinfluence of LRF semantic type, it is found that the organization pattern ofCLRF and ELRF in mental lexicon is not influenced directly by the semantictype of LRF but by the semantic function it realizes in sentences, which is partlydetermined by the meaning of LRF. This study attempts to shift the research focus on the mental lexiconorganization of such content words as nouns, verbs and adjectives to a group offormulaic sequences with similar meaning, namely, logical resultative formulae. Thus,the above results have enriched, to some degree, the literature on mental lexiconorganization research and provided some new theoretical and empirical support formental lexicon research. Meanwhile, this study may provide some empirical evidencefor second language learning in applied linguistics. In addition, due to the fact thatorganization pattern is the reflection of learners’ grasp of language on mental lexiconor conceptual network, thus by identifying the defect of L2LRF mental lexiconorganization pattern compared to that of L1, this research can provide someinspirations for English learning and teaching in China. It suggests that in order tolearn L2LRFs better, learners should put them in the whole language system andconnect them with other words in the system both in paradigmatic and syntagmaticconnections. Specifically, for advanced learners, L2LRF organization pattern,compared with that of L1, is lacking in syntagmatic patterns. In response to thissituation, English teachers and learners need to pay more attention to developingsyntagmatic organization by increasing more language practice in context to improvepractical language competence. As for intermediate learners, their L2LRForganization is lacking in both paradigmatic and syntagmatic pattern. Therefore,language teachers need to, on one hand, focus on guiding students to grasp morelexical meaning through various semantic network to change students’ organizationpattern from phonological/form level to more advanced level of paradigmatic andsyntagmatic patterns, on the other, should make some changes in teaching method byspending more time on the instruction of interactive language practice. This isespecially true for the teaching of those words with low frequency and relativelylimited semantic functions. Besides, text book compilers need to increase the contentconcerning the improvement of language learners’ practical competence so as to makeEnglish learning more efficient and more practically meaningful. |
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