Second Language Phonolexical Representations in Italian First-Grade Children Enrolled in an English Immersion Program: Effects of Receptive Vocabulary and Environmental Factors

The study investigated whether Italian child learners of English as a second language (L2) in a partial immersion program show accurate phonological representations of L2 words including challenging non-native vowels, and whether performance is related to age of onset and richness of L2 exposure, receptive L2 vocabulary, and parents’ skills in the L2. Twenty-eight children in first grade (mean age = 6;7 years; SD = 0;3) participated in an experiment in which they had to judge whether an English auditory stimulus matched its accompanying picture. In the target condition, picture and word were minimal pairs including the challenging /iː/–/ɪ/or/ʌ/–/æ/contrasts (e.g. sheep-ship). Receptive vocabulary in the L2 was assessed using a standardized test. Information on age of onset and current richness of L2 exposure and parents’ skills in the L2 was collected using a questionnaire. Results revealed that children were building lexical representations in the L2 but did not readily distinguish between minimal pairs. Analyses suggested that having underspecified phonolexical presentations in the L2 was potentially related to amount of L2 exposure outside school, presumably due to exposure to accented input.