Factors affecting mental lexicon

There are lots of definitions for mental lexicon which was mentioned firstly in "Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology" journal with an article published the name of "Things, words and the brain" (Oldfield, 1966)" . The most common definitions among them "a lexicon which is represented in the mind and allows individual language speakers to be involved in language comprehension and language production processes" (Jarema ve Libbeni, 2007 , s.1), "mental storage in which the meanings and relations of relevant words are located" (Richards ve Schmidt, 2010, s. 359) , " the storage of the words located in long-term memory (Taylor, 2012, s. 20). " availability of the words that comprise a language for individuals" (Bruze, diğerleri, 2009, s. 363) , "a memory system in which a vast number of words, accumulated in the course of time" (Hulstijn, 2000, s. 210), the mental repository of all representations that are intrinsically related to words (Bonin, 2004, s. 1) and "The mental lexicon is not a collection of words, it also deals with how those words are stored, activated, processed and retrieved by a speaker whenever he/she wants" (Al-Dala'ien, Mudhsh ve Al-Takhayinh, 2015,s. 1). We can summarise all these definitions as all information ( sound,spelling,meaning,usage) related to words people learn. All words learned through listening and reading are stored in human mind, refered to these registers during speaking and writing, used the necessary ones and the other ones are continued to be kept in mental memory. Therefore, mental lexicon are effective in all linguistic areas (Güneş, 2007, s. 203; 2009, s. 89). This term which is vast extensive and has significant effects has the influence of various factors. The influence of age and gender variables is laid emphasis on in this study, For this reason, a study was carried out with the students from primary school students to final year undergraduate students. It is aimed at observing the change tangibly happened in mental lexicon as the age increases. Likewise, gender variable is also taken into scope of analysing because it possible to sort out the students attending school in terms of gender and also possible to make a reacord of the development they have. In order to evaluate the influence of these variables, a word list was made and were asked the students, facing the words present on the list, to write a sentence coming to their mind. There are ten words (key, tongue , air, needle, wing, root, oven, game, measurement, road) on the word list. The sentences obtained from students were analyzed ve the meanings ascribed to key words were sorted out and thus it was analyzed whether meaning diversity in direct proportion to age were or not. Similarly, taking gender of students who are peer each other into consideration, it was analyzed whether there were meaning diversity and difference. When results were evaluated, it was found that the number of words and meaning diversity were increased. Core meanings ascribed to word primary classes were extended to connotations or figurative meanings. Even, it was found that some students thought same words or meanings and thus they made concept error. When data were evaluated in terms of gender, female students produced more meanings than male students. Male students preferred more simple meanings, namely core meanings and connotations. When we consider school variety, it was found that the students who gets high scores in "MEB"( the ministry of national education) and OSYM (assessment selection and placement center) exams has rich mental lexicon and ascribe more meanings to words. Key Words: mental lexicon, meaning and age, meaning and gender