When late second language learners access the meaning of L2 words: Using ERPs to investigate the role of the L1 translation equivalent

•Late learners access the meaning of second language words directly in comprehension.•When time is limited, there is semantic access without translation mediation in learners.•The meaning of an L2 word is accessed prior to the L1 translation equivalent in learners.•ERPs are more sensitive than behavioral data in examining L2 word meaning access.

According to the Revised Hierarchical Model (Kroll & Stewart, 1994), second language (L2) learners initially access the meaning of L2 words via the L1 whereas advanced learners access meaning directly. We tested this hypothesis with English learners of Spanish in a translation recognition task, in which participants were asked to judge whether English words were the correct translations of Spanish words. We gathered data on behavior and on the earliest time course of processing using ERPs. The critical conditions compared the performance of learners to reject distractors that were related to the translation in form or meaning when a long (750 ms) or short (300 ms) SOA separated the two words. The behavioral data revealed semantic and translation interference at both SOAs. The ERP data showed that at the long SOA, a larger P200, a smaller N400, and a larger LPC were elicited by semantic distractors. In addition, a larger P200 and a larger LPC were elicited by form distractors. At the short SOA, only a smaller N400 for semantic distractors was revealed. These results are remarkably similar to the pattern reported by Guo, Misra, Tam, and Kroll (2012) for relatively proficient Chinese-English bilinguals. Overall, these data suggest that even less proficient learners are able to access the meaning of the L2 word in comprehension without L1 mediation.