Prototypical associations in the production of words in English as a foreign language by L2 learners

Abstract This ongoing study attempts to explore the role semantic prototypes play in response to the production of words of a semantic category by two groups of learners differing in age and language level. Our main objectives point to i) the identification of the number of words produced in English regarding semantic prototypes by the groups of informants; ii) the analysis and comparison of the similarities and the differences of the prototypical associations provided by learners of different ages and different language levels; iii) the evidence of the universality of prototypes through the convergences and/ or divergences collected in the sample. The data collection instruments considered for this ongoing study are a background questionnaire and a productive semantic categorization task. Findings yielded that (i) there is evidence of prototype responses, and they are exclusively associated with the basic level of categorization; (ii) children retrieved fewer prototypical and non-prototypical words than adolescents in a lexical availability test; (iii) convergences and divergences are shown in the words retrieved by the two groups differing in age and language level. This study aims to evolve the dynamics of prototypical associations in language, and their linguistic, social, and cultural implications in communication when learning a foreign language.