Synonymy and processing load. A lexical decision task for natives and non-natives of neighboring languages

Abstract

The problem of the load of cognitive processing involving the recognition of a synonym in relation to another word in the lexicon has been the subject of many pieces of theoretical and empirical research. Recent studies show that: (a) there is no agreement on defi ning criteria for synonymy; (b) there are doubts about the position of a synonym in the mental model of lexical relations; (c) the experimental detection of synonymy can be accurately based on the level of reference only for a minor part of the lexical network; (d) synonymy is the counterpart of onomasiological polysemy; and (e) synonymy criteria are contextsensitive. In this study we selected two groups of participants, Spanish and Italian C1 students, who performed a lexical decision task in Spanish in which they had to recognize the equivalence or non-equivalence of two simple sentences that differed in a single lexical unit. For non-natives we inserted a subset of synonyms that are cognate or non-cognate in their mother tongue. The task measured two variables: the success/failure and the time of response. It is in the second variable that the cognitive load of simultaneous recognition of two lexical items as synonyms in the mental lexicon was observed with greater force. We then discuss these results in relation to the theoretical arguments and derive relevant educational implications.

Keywords: cognates, neighboring languages, lexical processing, teaching ELE.