Abstract

The book contains studies on second language lexical processes based on empirical findings by authors mostly from Central Europe. The reader may have access to how lexical items are stored in the memory and also to how second language lexicons work in speech processing. Questions of the two lexicons’ integration or separation, the fashion of bilingual word storage, vocabulary acquisition and assessment, word retrieval from the memory and lexical access are the focus of the studies. The authors of the studies refer to analyses of different psycholinguistic experiments (e.g. a word association test, speech perception tests, a Cloze-test). Assessment of written work of second language learners both at secondary school and university levels is also provided. Second language lexical acquisition processes are described and the influences of different types of languages on each other are shown. The second languages involved are mainly internationally less widely investigated and published languages of Finno-Ugric (i.e. Hungarian) and Indo-European (e.g. Croatian, Polish, Russian, etc.) origin next to the more frequently studied English and German. The studies included in our volume focus on lexical acquisition and processing and also make reference to pedagogical questions. They include investigations of lexical perception, production, acquisitional processes and vocabulary assessment. The novelty of the book is that the studies make reference to Hungarian and a number of Slavic languages. They provide the reader with new perspectives on second language lexical acquisition processes when the source language and the target language are distinct from a typological point of view, the lexicon in processing terms. The book is intended for the use of undergraduate and graduate students of second language studies, psycholinguistics and/or bilingualism researchers, teachers and academics whose interests include a second language acquisition component.

"For students of second-language learning, here is a book that will broaden perspectives and give new insights. Reporting on a number of original studies, whose focus is Hungarian and Slavic learners, it spans a wide range of topics, from the nature of the bilingual mental lexicon to the processes involved in accessing L2 lexis. Essential for anyone interested in how we learn, store, access and use vocabulary in a second language."

Zsolt Lengyel is a professor at the University of Pannonia, Veszprém, a part time professor at the University of Pécs and a visiting professor at Zagreb University, Croatia. He took his MA in Hungarian, Russian philology and Applied linguistics at Debrecen University, Hungary. He received PhD in developmental psycholinguistics. He was given Brassai Sámuel Award in 2002. His research interests include language development of Hungarian children, development of literacy before schooling, bilingual education in the kindergarten, word associations of 10-14 year old children and students of 18-24 years of age. He has written numerous articles, books on the mentioned topics. He is editor, member of editorial boards of several applied linguistics journals both in Hungary and abroad. Judit Navracsics took her MA degree in Russian at Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, in English at University of Pannonia, Veszprém, her Ph.D. degree at Pécs University. She is an associate professor at the Department of Applied Linguistics, at the University of Pannonia. She is Secretary of Applied Linguistics Branch of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, her habilitation is underway. She does research into bi- and multilingualism. She is the author and editor of books and papers on childhood bi- and trilingualism, the psycholinguistic aspects of multilingualism, early second language acquisition and the bilingual mental lexicon.

"Second language acquisition is getting over from the "art side" to the "science side". The present volume belongs to a new sphere of experimental linguistics: it is half-way between pure psycholinguistics and applied linguistics. This has been demonstrated by nine research papers focussing on the lexicon in SLA. Authors investigate these issues in East Central Europe (with a state of art paper written by an Irish expert) keeping in mind the geographical and historical features of their countries: Hungary, Croatia, and Poland. "