Abstract: The study of speech production is a challenging question in language research. The topic of this paper is to introduce two important theories of lexical access in speech production. There are three main questions to answer in two-step interactive activation theory and discrete stage theory. First, how many steps or stages are involved? Second, what is the time course of the processes involved? Third, are these stages independent or interact with one another? According to these three questions, we compare the similarity and the difference between two theories.

Key words: speech production, lexical access, two-step interactive activation theory, discrete stage theory