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Abstract Research on L1 activation in English compound processing has been concerned with the activation of L1 of whole word, but failed to pay due attention to the following two issues: whether L1 of constituents is activated; if so, how it is activated. In this paper, a lexical decision task was used to examine L1 activation of constituents in L2 compound processing by Chinese English learners with high and low L2 proficiency. It is found that during the processing of familiar English compounds, when familiarities of constituents are higher significantly than that of whole word, low-proficiency English learners access the concepts of constituents via their L1 because familiarity of whole word inhibits those of constituents, while high-proficiency English learners access the concepts of constituents directly and then activate their L1 because familiarity of whole word does not inhibit those of constituents. The pedagogical suggestions proposed in the paper are to increase the exposure of compounds and strengthen the teaching of constituents in L2 learning.
Key words: L1 activation; constituents; English compounds; Chinese learners
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