The effect of representational preference on second language lexical access in late bilinguals

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.