An Empirical Study on Trilingual Semantic Access via Different Paths in Chinese-English-Korean Trilinguals

You Ma; Hui Shi

doi:10.62177/chst.v3i2.1233

Authors

You Ma Qingdao University
Hui Shi Qingdao University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.62177/chst.v3i2.1233

Keywords:

Trilinguals, Visual Pathway, Auditory Pathway, Semantic Access, Cross-Linguistic Repetition Priming

Abstract

To explore the mediating mechanism and pathway effect of trilingual semantic access under a cross-linguistic family background, this study adopted a cross-linguistic repetition priming paradigm with 60 Chinese-English-Korean trilinguals as participants, and set three presentation conditions: visual, auditory, and audio-visual. The purpose was to empirically examine the mediating role and its intensity of the first language (L1, Chinese) and the second language (L2, English) in the process of semantic information retrieval of the third language (L3, Korean). The results showed that: 1) L1 Chinese exerted a stable mediating effect on L3 Korean semantic access under all three pathway conditions, with no significant difference in priming effect among different pathways; 2) The mediating effect of L2 English was pathway-restricted, being significant only under the visual pathway, and the priming effect under this pathway was significantly stronger than that of L1 Chinese; 3) Under the visual pathway condition, there was a significant difference in priming effect between L1 Chinese and L2 English, with L2 English showing a stronger priming effect; under the auditory and audio-visual dual-pathway conditions, there was no significant difference in priming effect between the two languages. The study indicates that the trilingual semantic access of Chinese-English-Korean trilinguals is jointly regulated by language proficiency, language distance, and task presentation pathway, and follows the principle of cognitive economy. This study provides empirical support for the mechanism of cross-linguistic family trilingual semantic access, and also offers references for pathway-adapted training and the optimization of mediating language strategies in trilingual teaching.

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