ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Psychology of Language
The Effect of Representational Preference on Second Language Lexical Access in Late Bilinguals
Yan Yang 1
Yi Chang 2
Qiaozhi Wen 1
Qinghong Xu 2
1. Yan'an University, Yan'an, China
2. Yulin University, Yulin, China
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Abstract
L2 vocabulary learning of late bilinguals is characterized by the mediation of their L1, which may lead to differences in access efficiency and activation pathway among learners with different representational preferences. In the experiment, we used statistical methods to compare the importance of representational preferences with the well-investigated factors, i.e., L2 proficiency and cognitive style, on late bilinguals' L2 lexical access. The results showed that representational preference was a more effective variable for subject classification. Furthermore, participants with different representational preferences were compared in response time to word translation judgment tasks. The results showed that participants with different representational preferences showed differences in lexical access efficiency, and those with imagistic preference also implied shifts in the access pathway between unfamiliar and familiar words.
Summary
Keywords
concept-mediation, L1- to concept-mediation conversion, L1-mediation, representational preference, second language vocabulary access
Received
12 November 2025
Accepted
04 February 2026
Copyright
© 2026 Yang, Chang, Wen and Xu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Yi Chang; Qinghong Xu
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