Abstract
Knowing a language involves knowing a large number of idiosyncratic units such as individual words and collocations which must be learned from the input. This study explores the role of implicit and explicit memory, as well as language experience, and specifically print exposure, with regard to adult native English speakers’ knowledge of vocabulary and collocations. Consistent with prior research, our findings reveal a strong correlation between print exposure and performance on both language tasks. However, contrary to predictions, there were no significant effects of either implicit or explicit memory on either task. We argue that this is most likely due to the fact that language learning relies primarily on memory for associations between form and meaning and between words rather than memory sequences of meaningless phonological forms.
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Editorial: Constructions under construction: Items, patterns, grammar
- Constructicon in progress
- Multi-Dimensional Regularity Analysis: How the Entrenchment-and-Conventionalization Model can be applied to corpus data
- Lexical knowledge, memory and experience
- Nominal constructions in spoken academic Englishes: A quantitative corpus-based approach
- Causative constructions in process: How do they come into existence in learner writing?
- “I’m gonna get totally and utterly X-ed.” Constructing drunkenness
- The German geschweige denn construction
- A reference constructicon as a database
- Dimensions of constructional meanings in the German Constructicon: Why collo-profiles matter
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Editorial: Constructions under construction: Items, patterns, grammar
- Constructicon in progress
- Multi-Dimensional Regularity Analysis: How the Entrenchment-and-Conventionalization Model can be applied to corpus data
- Lexical knowledge, memory and experience
- Nominal constructions in spoken academic Englishes: A quantitative corpus-based approach
- Causative constructions in process: How do they come into existence in learner writing?
- “I’m gonna get totally and utterly X-ed.” Constructing drunkenness
- The German geschweige denn construction
- A reference constructicon as a database
- Dimensions of constructional meanings in the German Constructicon: Why collo-profiles matter