Investigation of collocational priming in tertiary level Turkish EFL learners’ mental lexicon

Much research in EFL context investigated language use of the learners in terms of lexical combinations but failed to recognize collocations in terms of psycholinguistic framework. Inspired by Lexical Priming Theory, the current study both emphasizes that collocations are not only textual but also psychological phenomena and underlines that non-native-like language use by EFL learners may stem from the fact that collocations are not mentally represented as a single unit in mental lexicon. Thus, a lexical decision task was designed where the participants were asked to classify the words flashing on their screens as words/ non-words. Reaction times concluded that verb-noun collocations are not primed in the learners’ mental lexicon.Mixed effects modelling analysis demonstrated the frequency of the prime words in collocations had a significant effect in the process. The findings were discussed in the light of vocabulary acquisition theories, and suggestions were provided for further research.