parallel access to words in both their L1 and L2. When an L2 user is asked to name (or pronounce) words from their L1, units in the presented words that are also found in the user's L2 can be distractors and therefore increase reaction time and/or error rate. If there were separate lexicons for each language, then an L2 user should not become distracted by L2 word units when accessing their L1 knowledge. L2 users often have different voice-onset time (VOT)s than the average speaker of either their L1 or L2.

Implications for language teaching