Critical Review of Three Researches on Lexical Developmental Hypothesis

摘要

Lexical developmental hypothesis arouses many linguists’interests and stimulates them to test it in various ways. However, in testing this model, quite a few collisions emerge between different research conclusions. This essay critically re-views three researches which focus on how bilingual’s L2 vocabulary processing way varies with proficiency level, and sorts out the discrepancies between results concerning the effect of concept mediation on L2 lexical processing. After a close analysis of the researches’variables, including yardstick of subjects’proficiency, subjects’L2 learning strategies, word imageability, and translation direction, the writer proposes possible causes of the discrepancies, and justifies the hypotheses implicated by the lexical developmental model.