THE ROLE OF PHONOLOGICAL MEMORY IN ADULT L2 LEXICAL DEVELOPMENT

Abstract

This paper explores the role of phonological memory (PM) in the vocabulary
acquisition of adult second language learners to uncover whether these learners’
PM capacities could explain vocabulary and proficiency gains over an academic
semester. Intermediate learners of Korean were tested at both the start and end of
a semester on non-word repetition (NWR) tasks in Korean and English as a
longitudinal measure of their PM capacities in the two languages. Vocabulary and
C-test performances were used to gauge participants’ lexical knowledge and
proficiency respectively at the two time points. Results indicated that there was a
significant interaction of PM capacity and time such that high PM capacities were
associated with an increase in vocabulary breadth and proficiency in Korean. In
addition, a significant positive correlation between the Korean and English NWR
tasks was found, suggesting PM may be language-independent.