Summary This ongoing study attempts to explore the role semantic prototypes and prototypical associations play in response to the production of words when learning English as a foreign language with groups of children and adolescent informants at the 6th and 12th forms in Spain. This research will contribute to the exploration of linguistic, cultural, and communicative characteristics in the learning of an FL
Abstract A semantic prototype is seen as the best, central, and most representative exemplar in a category (Rosch, 1975). Thus, the prototype is the exemplary best recognized by the human being in a category. Research on the words associated in response to semantic categories is essential for understanding how the categorization process works in a language, and precisely how L2 EFL learners categorize vocabulary (Pavlenko, 2009). Studies on the identification of prototypes by bilingual and monolingual L2 and L3 EFL learners have been conducted (Ibbotson y Tomasello,2009; Šifrar Kalan,2014) However, research on prototypical association tasks is rather scarce. This study emphasizes the identification of one semantic category with one group of children and one group of adolescent informants enrolled at the 6th and 12th forms established in Spain. 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 universality of prototypes in the selected semantic category. The data collection instruments considered for this ongoing study are: a background questionnaire, which includes questions to gather information on learners' age, language profile, and previous experience with the English language; and a productive semantic categorization task, which consists of a prompt or a semantic category traditionally included in fluency tasks, association tasks, and lexical availability studies. 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. Keywords: Prototypes, Prototypical Associations, Productive Vocabulary, Prompts, Foreign Language, English
