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The Korean Association for the Study of English Language and Linguistics
[ Article ]
Korea Journal of English Language and Linguistics - Vol. 24, No. 0, pp.921-933
ISSN: 1598-1398 (Print) 2586-7474 (Online)
Print publication date 31 Jan 2024
Received 29 Jul 2024 Revised 21 Aug 2024 Accepted 02 Sep 2024
DOI: https://doi.org/10.15738/kjell.24..202409.921

Trilingual Word Recognition: Phonological Priming Effects in Trilingual with Different-script Languages

Jung Hyun Lim ; Hee-Don Ahn
Research Professor, Institute of Multiculturalism and Multilingualism Konkuk University Seoul, Korea dlightjlim@gmail.com
Professor, Department of English Language and English Literature Konkuk University Seoul, Korea hdahn@konkuk.ac.kr


© 2024 KASELL All rights reserved
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons License, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Research on bilingual lexical processing has been extensive, yet studies focusing on trilingual lexical processing, particularly involving different-script languages, remain scarce. This gap in the literature highlights the need for further investigation into whether phonological representations are shared across languages in trilingual individuals. The present study addresses this need by exploring phonological priming effects in unbalanced trilingual speakers of Chinese (L1), English (L2), and Korean (L3). Using a masked-priming lexical decision task, this study investigates phonological priming effects in unbalanced trilingual speakers of Chinese(L1)-English(L2)-Korean(L3), focusing on the cross-linguistic influence of L3 on L2 word recognition. Responses from 38 participants were analyzed using a linear mixed-effects model to examine the influence of phonological information in L3 on the activation of L2 in trilinguals. The results showed a marginally significant phonological priming effect, indicating that Chinese speakers were influenced by Korean phonological information during English word recognition. Interactions between prime types and proficiency were also observed, albeit marginally significant, suggesting that higher proficiency in each language increases the influence of the primes. These findings provide tentative support for non-selective lexical access models, highlighting the complexity of multilingual lexical processing. The results are discussed in relation to several models concerning bilingual and trilingual lexical processing.

Keywords:

cross-linguistic influence, non-selective lexical access, trilinguals, different-script languages, masked-priming lexical decision task, phonological priming, multilingual lexical processing

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF-2023S1A5C2A02095124).

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