Language Identity Development: Cognitive Aspects of Being a Self-made Bilingual

Overall cognitive development of a person might be evaluated through the analysis of their speech. Thus, language reflects the way people process the information coming from the outer world. In this work we look into the problem of how to form language habits that would affect human cognition. In particular, we look into the ways to develop a mindset for associative language structures from the point of lexical semantics. The problem of acquiring new lexical knowledge mostly occurs in second-language learners. Nevertheless, the phenomenon of linguistic intercalation might be observed in adult bilinguals with a high proficiency level in their second language. Processes underlying first language attrition might be a key to mental lexicon development in second-language acquisition. The presented study is aimed to consider the ways to boost learners’ vocabulary through associative learning based on corpus technologies principles. Methodology of the study includes a cohort survey analysis, a set of associative experiments and semantic analysis of target vocabulary represented by slang words derived from English. The comparative analysis of the cohort group (represented by students studying a linguistics degree) survey results and the target words’ semantic meaning proves the considerable difference in associative-relations patterns formed within bilingual mind. Corpus technologies discussed in the article allow reconsidering the usual ways of organizing lexical material in the process of teaching a foreign language. In accordance with the hypothesis put forward by the presented study, models for a self-developing mental lexicon formation are proposed.

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