L2 Lexical Development Definition of Terms

13 meaning of a word while the breadth of meanings refers to the multiple meaning senses of a word.

3. L2 Lexical Development

One of the most essential tasks of vocabulary acquisition in an L2 is the mapping of lexical forms to meaning Jiang, 2002: 617. Language learners use vocabulary mapping as the learning strategy to identify and specify lexical properties and to eventually incorporate them into their existing lexical system or network of the lexical properties Mukarto, 1999: 28. This vocabulary mapping constitutes representation of a word meaning both syntactic and semantic features within the meaning boundary of a word which make up the meaning of that word depth of meaning and the multiple meaning senses of a word breadth of meaning Mukarto, 2005: 157. This representation refers as meaning mapping. Swan 1997 cited in Mukarto 2005 claims that mapping second language vocabulary onto mother tongue is a basic and indispensable learning strategy. It is a general phenomenon in the EFL learning context in Indonesia. Figure 2.2: The lexical representation in the mental lexicon. Source: Jiang 2000: 48 14 Based on Levelt’s model of lexical entry in the mental lexicon, Jiang 2000: 48, proposed the three stages of second language vocabulary mapping development. a. Formal Stage of Development Word­Association Stage In the initial stage of L2 vocabulary learning, L2 words are mapped to L1 translations, not to its meaning directly. In this stage, L2 words are learned mainly as formal entities because the meaning is provided either through association with L1 translation or by means of definition rather than extracted or learned from the context by learners themselves Jiang, 2000: 50. b. Lemma­Mediation Stage Concept­Mediation Stage The next stage is the L1 lemma mediation stage. In this stage, the information L1 lexeme ­ morphology, pronunciation, and orthography ­ is gradually deactivated because it does not assist the L2 word use. A strong link between L2 words and the lemma component meaning and syntax of L1 translation is established. So, the mapping is no longer done from L2 words to L1 translation but from L2 words to L1 meaning directly. L2 learner arrive at this stage when they have already had advanced and increase experience in L2. Adopting Levelt’s model of lexical representation, Jiang suggest that L1 lemma information could be said to have been copied into the L2 lexical entry from its L1 translation and become part of the lexical knowledge represented in L2 entries. Transfer of lexical meanings from the native language to the target language is a familiar phenomenon with second language learners at the beginner level Ijaz, 1986: 405. Ijaz suggest, concepts in the L1 are transferred to the L2 and mapped onto new linguistics labels regardless of differences in the semantics boundaries 15 of corresponding words. The continuous L1 transfer could promote problem for L2 learners. Very rarely do L2 words have one to one correspondence with L1 words Mukarto, 1999: 28. Poedjosoedarmo 1989: 66­70 cited in Mukarto, 1999: 28 suggest that most L2 words are polysemous; they have more than one meaning and different meaning may require different linguistics context. c. Integration­Stage Final Stage of Development The last stage is called L2 integration stage. Learners arrive at this stage when the semantic, syntactic and morphological specifications of an L2 word are extracted form exposure and uses and integrated into lexical entry. In the point of learners’ L2 lexical development, Jiang 2000 observes that there are two practical constraints on L2 lexical development in instructional setting. The first constraint is that L2 learners do not have any contextualized input in the target language that make them difficult to create and extract semantics, morphological, and syntactic specifications about a word and integrate such information into the lexical entry of that word. L2 acquisition in instructional setting only provides such a tiny amount of input for the learners to work Singleton: 51. The second constraint is that L2 learners have established L1 semantic system that closely associated with the target language; this makes the L2 learners tend to rely on the system in learning the L2 vocabulary. The L2 learners in the initial stage learn L2 words together with its L1 translation. When L2 learners learn L2 words together with their translation, the learners’ language processor or language acquisition device may be less motivated to pay attention to the contextual cues for meaning extraction. Thus the tendency to use L1 translation in learning the L2 vocabulary would hinder the L2 lexical development. Ijaz adds, in the case of L2 lexical 16 acquisition the learners may copy such abstract entries from L1 lexicon to the interlanguage lexicon to assist the recognition of L2 words. According to her, in this way of learning, concepts underlying word in the L1 are transferred to the L2 and mapped onto the new linguistic labels regardless of differences in the semantics boundaries of corresponding words Ijaz: 405. This would easily lead the L2 learners to error in L2 use and production. The continuous L1 transfer may also become the impedance of L2 lexical development. L2 learners would stick on a certain stage of development and difficult to reach the complete and final stage of development.

4. Model of Vocabulary Acquisition