Chapter 1 Introduction

1.1 Context of the Study

The study of the mental lexicon, which deals primarily with how words are represented and processed in the mind, is a key issue in psycholinguistics. Determining the mechanisms of“the black box”, however, is by no means an easy task, and a complete understanding of them often requires the examination of a variety of word types across domains like the syntactic category and the number of morphemes. Therefore, the processing of compound words, and morphologically complex words more generally, should be given due attention in psycholinguistic investigations.

With the estimate even thirty years ago that more than half of the world's population can speak more than one language(Grosjean, 1982), and with the claim that compounding is the most universal process for forming complex words across all languages(Dressler, 2006), the significance of studying the processing of compound words(in both L1 and L2) is all too apparent. Especially, we may well say that research on the processing of L2 compound words provides a valuable perspective for testing the models in the two seemingly independent fields: bilingual lexicon and compound processing.

The central question in this line of research, which remains largely unresolved, revolves around the degree to which morphologically complex words, or multimorphemic words, are decomposed as opposed to being processed as whole words. Are they represented and processed as individual morphemes that are accessed through a combinatorial mechanism as proposed to full-parsing(decomposition) models(Taft & Forster, 1975; 1976), or only as unitary lexical units as proposed to full-listing(non-decomposition) models(Butterworth, 1983)? Alternatively, both mechanisms may be involved in the processing as suggested by dual-route models(Baayen et al., 1997; Caramazza et al., 1988; Pollatsek, et al., 2000; Schreuder & Baayen, 1995). Furthermore, the representation and processing of morphologically complex words has been found to be subject to the interplay of such factors as semantic transparency, frequency, morphological headedness, position in the string, and morphological family size. Among these factors semantic transparency is the most studied and has been found to be of relatively greater importance, but the debate is still going on as to how transparency modulates the contribution of whole-word and morpheme-based information during the processing of morphologically complex words(e.g., Frisson et al., 2008; Libben et al., 2003; Zwitserlood, 1994).

Despite ample experimental evidence that morphology does play an important role in word processing, most studies in this regard concern derived and inflected words(i.e. affixed words) in the native language(e.g., Longtin & Meunier, 2005; Marslen-Wilson et al., 2008; Schreuder & Baayen, 1997; Taft & Forster, 1975). Cross-language processing of complex words has only been examined in recent years(e.g., Chen, 2009; Clahsen et al., 2012; Diependaele et al., 2011; Ramirez et al., 2011; Silva & Clahsen, 2008), with quite controversial results. Some results are interpreted as evidence for the influence of L1 on the processing of L2, while others seem to bear out a processing mechanism which functions similarly for both L1 and L2 speakers. More specifically, cross-language processing of compound words has received even less attention in the literature, and the few studies available have mostly used off-line methods and balanced bilingual subjects who tend to learn their L1 and L2 simultaneously(e.g., Foroodi-Nejad & Paradis, 2009; Nicoladis, 2002). How non-balanced bilinguals, or medium- to low-proficiency L2 learners process the compound words in their L2 is still a question waiting to be answered and the research in this area will not only shed light on the working of the bilingual mental lexicon but also yield practical benefits for language acquisition and pedagogy. Against this background, the author of the present study finds it intriguing to ask whether the processing of English compound words by Chinese EFL learners takes place via a decompositional or whole-word route, whether their L1 plays a role in their processing of L2 compounds words, and whether the processing is influenced by the constraint of semantic transparency.