ERIC ED414747: An Investigation of the Mental Lexicon of Second Language Learners.

19 Pages·1996·0.25 MB·Interlanguage

by  ERIC

DOCUMENT RESUME
FL 024 942
ED 414 747
O'Gorman, Elizabeth
AUTHOR
An Investigation of the Mental Lexicon of Second Language
TITLE
Learners.
PUB DATE
1996-00-00
18p.; For serial publication in which this article appears,
NOTE
see FL 024 940.
Research (143)
Reports
Journal Articles (080)
PUB TYPE
TEANGA: The Irish Yearbook of Applied Linguistics; n16
JOURNAL CIT
p15-31 1996
MF01/PC01 Plus Postage.
EDRS PRICE
*Associative Learning; Chinese; *Cognitive Development;
DESCRIPTORS
Comparative Analysis; Contrastive Linguistics; *English
(Second Language); Foreign Countries; Interlanguage;
Language Research; Linguistic Theory; Second Language
Learning; *Transfer of Training; *Vocabulary Development
Hong Kong
IDENTIFIERS
ABSTRACT
A study investigated the organization and development of
second language lexicons among Hong Kong learners of English as a Second
Language (ESL). Specifically, it compared the associations promoted by a
single list of 20 frequent, common words in the learners' native language
(L1, Chinese) and second language (L2, English). Subjects were 22 teacher
trainees with mid-level English proficiency. They heard the list of English
words and then in Chinese, and were asked to write the first word that
entered their minds. The responses were analyzed for the frequencies of
different response words, and the results compared to determine which similar
semantic prompts inspired different responses in the two languages, and which
inspired different responses. Results suggest that the Ll and L2 lexicons of
this group are very different in structure. The Ll and L2 prompt words evoked
neither similar frequencies of responses nor similar semantic associations in
the two lexicons, and individual word responses did not elicit similar
frequencies of word types in Ll and L2. It is concluded that different
languages produce different storage and retrieval systems, refuting the
notion of a common underlying principle of bilingual proficiency. Contains 16
references.
(MSE)
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Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made
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An Investigation of the Mental Lexicon of
Second Language Learners'
Elizabeth O'Gorman
1. Introduction
Without grammar very little can be conveyed;
without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed
Wilkins 1972
In Hong Kong, the current emphasis on teaching grammar may cause
some teachers to overlook the crucial importance of teaching vocabulary.
From a cursory examination of popular textbooks it might seem that
vocabulary is unimportant. However, there seems to be a resurgence of
This may be linked to the impact of technology on
interest in lexis.
research and the ease with which data can now be inputted into a corpus or
analysed by a concordancer. As a result, it is likely that vocabulary will
once again assume a stronger presence than it has been accorded in the
past.
1.1 The mental lexicon
Knowing how vocabulary is stored in the mental lexicon is important. If
an approximate model can be made of the storage and retrieval systems of
the lexicon then the teaching and learning of vocabulary can be enhanced.
Several metaphors for such a model have been suggested -
a dictionary
a thesaurus
an encyclopedia
a library
a computer
Of these, the computer analogy seems the most appropriate.
It conveys
the notion of simultaneous access to a variety of sources of information
about an
A word's
individual word.
phonological,
orthographic,
grammatical and semantic properties can be stowed for instant retrieval.
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE
AND
Office of Educational Research and Improvement
DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL
EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION
CENTER (ERIC)
HAS BEEN GRANTED BY
fl'Fb
This document has been reproduced as
received from the person or organization
riginating it.
Minor changes have been made to
15
improve reproduction quality.
2
TO THE EDUCATIONAL
Points of view or opinions stated in this
RESOURCES
document do not necessarily represent
INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC)
official OERI position or policy.
Elizabeth O'Gorman
Also, links can be created between various words which pertain to any and
every of these features.
is no way of accessing the mental lexicon
As there
these
itself,
approximations of its structure are mainly hypothetical.
The difficulty
therefore, is ascertaining exactly what these links are and how they work.
Slips of the tongue, error analysis, word association, malapropisms and
introspection are a few of the research tools that have been used to reach
it. Word association is the easiest and quickest way of collecting data and
it has a long history of use in psychology with established norms.
Therefore, it is often the method of choice in language research.
1.1.1 The native speaker's lexicon
Based on word association research, the consensus on the native speaker's
lexicon is that it changes in structure from childhood to adulthood.
At
first the links between words are mainly phonological.
Later strong
semantic links become the norm.
In adulthood, the native speaker's
associative links between words are relatively stable with high correlation
on repeated testing. Moreover, the responses on word association tests are
strongly convergent with high frequencies of relatively few words
accounting for all subjects' responses (Aitchison 1987). The question is,
are these findings mirrored in the lexicons of non- native speakers?
1.1.2 The L2 learner's mental lexicon
How do second language learners store the vocabulary of their target
language? Does the storage system of vocabulary differ in their LI and L2
lexicons?
If we can discover how the L2 lexicon is structured, insights
may be revealed which help to understand how best it can be expanded.
This is important not only for vocabulary learning but also for vocabulary
teaching. As there has been comparatively little research in vocabulary,
the methods of teaching vocabulary
not always founded on
are
psycholinguistic principles but may rely on untested assumptions.
1.1.3 The relationship between the Ll and L2 mental lexicons
Several possible models exist for the structure of the language learner's
mental lexicon.
an undifferentiated mass of both LI and L2 lexical items
separate lexicons which develop individually, one for each language
a combination of these two
This is not to imply that there is a single universal, unchanging model for
all language learners. As a learner progresses through different levels of
16
The L2 mental lexicon
proficiency, a gradual change in the mental lexicon may occur. Another
age2. Cummins and Swain
factor contributing to change in the lexicon is
(1986), in their work on linguistic interdependence, have proposed a
concept of a universal language proficiency underlying Ll and L2. This
has been labeled CUP (common underlying proficiency) and serves as a
model for general language learning. They suggest that:
common cross-lingual proficiencies
different
obviously
underlie
the
of
each
surface
manifestations
language and bilingual proficiency is
represented by a dual ice-berg model
Bilingualism in Education (p. 82)
The common underlying proficiency
Figure 5.2
model (CUP) of bilingual proficiency.
An extrapolation of this model suggests that while the surface features (the
words in this instance) of two languages are obviously different, a
vocabulary
common semantic space and similar links will underlie the
items of the Ll and L2. Evidence for this thesis would be finding similar
links for the same semantic entries in the individual lexicons. That is, the
word table would prompt the same association, e.g. chair in both the Ll
and the L2.
1.2 Research questions
1. Do the responses on a word association test converge similarly in LI
and L2?
2. Are the associative links between words semantically similar in Ll and
L2?
3. Are the prompt words which elicit high frequency responses similar in
Ll and L2?
1.3 The nature of this investigation
The purpose of this
the
attempt
broaden
to
to
investigation
is
understanding of how the mental lexicon of the Hong Kong L2 learner is
In particular, it seeks to compare the associations prompted
constructed.
by a single list of twenty frequent, basic, common words in the LI
(Chinese) and L2 (English). If the words give rise to similar associations,
perhaps the notion of a single lexicon for both languages is appropriate.
Knowing a word means being aware of the semantic space it occupies and
17
Elizabeth O'Gorman
does not occupy.
The term word association can refer to either
a
psycholinguistical or sociolinguistical aspect of
a word.
In language
research, it
is usual to focus on the psycholinguistical interpretation:
referring to the store of words and the interrelations between them
(Carter
than the more sociolinguistical
1987)
rather
interpretation which
acknowledges the meanings that may be accrued from the social, cultural
or pragmatic contexts. However, can these two aspects be separated?
In language research, the type of word associations
a person makes can be
classified into two main categories: phonological
or semantic.
Meara
(1984) found that beginners and young language learners tended
to make
phonological links between words (clang associations).
The type of
semantic associations made can be subdivided into paradigmatic and
syntagmatic responses. Here, paradigmatic usually refers
to words from
the same grammatical class and a similar semantic
They may be
area.
coordinates, superordinates, synonyms or antonyms
e.g. dog, cat, animal.
By contrast syntagmatic refers to linked words which
can be part of a
syntactic (grammatical sequence) and therefore
are collocates of the word,
e.g. dog, bark, furry.
Traditionally, in the early research on word association, this differentiation
within semantic associations was perceived
as being important.
It was
found to distinguish between the responses of language learners
at varying
levels of proficiency. However, this distinction has been eschewed in
this
short study for the following reasons.
1. There are difficulties in classifying words into either
category. There
are fuzzy boundaries between them.
(Is chair a syntagmatic or
paradigmatic response to table? What about
queen in relation to king?)
2. In this study, some of the responses
were ambivalent in their
relationship to the prompt word and possibly
were errors (e.g. length as
a response to short, height as a response to long). This necessitated the
use of another category- 'misrepresentations' which distorted traditional
analysis.
3. Moreover, the purpose in syntagmatic\paradigmatic research is
usually
to distinguish between learners of different proficiency levels. In this
investigation, the subjects are at roughly the
same level, all having
achieved similar results on the college entrance criteria.
Thus, the
value of the distinction is not relevant.
18
The L2 mental lexicon
4. Most importantly, while syntagmatic\paradigmatic research is usually
concerned with INTER-language
INTRA-language, this
study
is
comparisons. As pointed out by Mitchell (1975) different collocations
exist in different languages. Indeed, they exist in different varieties of
the same language.° For example the word 'soft' collocates with 'day' in
Irish English but not in the English spoken in England. Consequently,
a comparison of syntagyms and paradigms in the word associations of
any two languages will necessarily differ and be a feature of each
language rather than a source of comparative proficiency data.
2 Method and problems
2.1 The investigation
The choice of method in investigations of the mental lexicon is limited to
error analysis slips of the tongue introspection and word association. As a
primary focus of the study is the variable associative links of Ll and L2,
word association seemed the obvious choice of method. What follows is a
comparison of a small number of language learners' LI and L2 mental
It is primarily descriptive in nature and does not seek to
lexicons.
generalize to any population. It focuses on the written word associations
generated by oral prompts as this was the simplest way of collecting data.
A similar study focusing on oral responses may produce somewhat
different results.
2.1.1 Subjects
The subjects were a group of 22 students in their first year of a tertiary
All were English electives and although all had
teacher training course.
similar results in the Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination,
the apparent range of their ability (as gleaned from classroom interaction)
was quite diverse. However their scores, (excluding the two extremes), on
the Goulden et al., (1990) vocabulary checklist were from a fairly narrow
range - 4,300 - 6,500 and the mean score determining vocabulary size was
5,230. Other research on L2 vocabulary size indicated that Hong Kong
secondary form two and form three students have vocabulary levels of
1992) and that Japanese
1,263 and 1,565 (Cheung,
approximately
proficient language learners have vocabulary levels of between 4,900 -
12,100 with a mean of 7,700 (Izawa, 1993).
This suggests that the
subjects come from a mid-proficiency range.
2.1.2 Method
A list of twenty English words from McNeill (1995), taken from the Kent-
This list was also
Rosanoff (1910) list was used as prompt words.
19
Elizabeth O'Gorman
translated into Chinese. On separate occasions each list was read out to
They were instructed to write down the first word that
the subjects.
entered their mind on the provided worksheet. Due to outside factors
beyond control, only 15 sets of responses were included in the Chinese
survey and 16 in the English survey. Of these, the responses for 20 words
were included in the English survey. In the Chinese survey one word
smooth was translated ambiguously and elicited a different response from
each of the subjects. Consequently, it was dropped from the analysis and
only 19 words of the 20 were used.
2.1.3 Method of Comparing Chinese (L1) with English (L2)
Students heard the list of 20 prompt words in English and then in Chinese.
The total possible number of responses for English was 320 [20 prompt
words X 16 subjects] and the possible total number of responses for
Chinese was 285 [19 prompt words X 15 students]. However, the actual
total number of responses was distorted in both cases as one student gave
two responses to three words and a few subjects did not write responses to
This latter phenomenon occurred a little more
every prompt words.
frequently in English than in Chinese -10 times in English and 7 times in
Chinese.
2.1.4 Analyses used
The responses produced by the word association test were analysed and
the frequencies of different response words (types) were tallied for each
This elicited the overall convergence and divergence of
language.
responses in LI and L2 -the types token ratio.
Following this, the
responses for each word and for
translation were compared to
its
determine which similar semantic prompts inspired different responses in
Ll and L2 and which semantic prompts inspired similar responses in LI
and L2. Next, the high frequency responses in LI and L2 were compared
to see if any obvious relationship existed.
2.2 Problems with method
As Carter (1987) pointed out, word association research is limited. One to
one translations of the stimulus word is difficult beyond a very basic level
and even then the connotations of a word in any two languages is unlikely
to be similar.
Homographs and homophones cause problems, some
peculiar to studies involving Chinese characters. The Chinese characters
for light and bright are the same and take their meaning from the context
without a context, as in simple word association, it is impossible to tell.
20
The L2 mental lexicon
2.2.1 Problems with method
In translating words into Chinese, there is the additional problem of
Cantonese being the oral version and Putonghua being the written version.
Equally, retranslating the words back into English for the purposes of
analysing them, leads to further distortion of the boundaries of the
semantic space they occupy.
Additionally, assessing the links in the mental lexicon through the use of
discrete vocabulary items is far removed from their normal contextualised
usage. Thus, it may not be an accurate representation of the mental links.
Equally, knowing a word includes knowledge not only of its semantic
sense but also of the way it is used (its inflections, its derivations, its
usage). Similar criticisms of this type of research have been put forward
by Cowie (1984) among others who states there is a need to move away
from purely psycholinguistic research strategies.
While a single word response is very limiting, in some respects, test retest
correlations have proved high in past research (Postman and Keppel,
1970). A spew test would not necessarily have been more revealing and
the additional information mainly repetitive, though perhaps having more
validity.
3. Analyses
3.1 Research question 1: Do the responses on a word association test
converge similarly in LI and L2? [Type token ratio.]
3.1.1 Types per prompt word.
When the associations were analysed the overall trend noted was that the
responses in Chinese tended to converge, whereas the responses in English
tended to diverge. There was a marked similarity within the L1 responses
and a contrasting disparity among the L2 responses.
The number of different words (the types) given in response to each
prompt word in Chinese contrasted strongly with the number of words
given in English.
8
21
Elizabeth O'Gorman
Figure 1 Responses classified into number of types per prompt word.
O chlnesetypes
onglish types
14
12.
10 .
8.
Fitlillilii.11111111111,
6
4
2
0
6 7 8
3 4
9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
2
5
1
word
3.1.2 Total number of types
The total number of types required to account for all the tokens (words
given in response to a prompt word ) offered by the subjects in Chinese
contrasted strongly with the total number of types required to account for
all the tokens given in English. This, in part, is accounted for by the fact
that only 19 words and their associated responses are considered in
Chinese whereas 20 words form the basis for analysis in English. This has
the effect of distorting the data but the overall difference is so great that it
seems to have only a slight impact.
Table 1: Type\Token ratio
Word types required to account for all tokens
number of
total number
expressed as
a ratio
of tokens
types
Chinese
96
316
.35
English
277
.60
191
Here only 96 types were needed to account for all responses in Chinese; in
contrast, 191 words were needed to account for all the responses in
English.
9
22
The L2 mental lexicon
Prompt, responses and frequencies in Ll and L2
Table la: Analysis of Chinese prompts and responses
3rd most
2nd most
1st most
prompt
common response common response
common response
furniture water
2
1 table
chair
6 2
2 dark
night
light
14
1
woman
strong
3 man
2
13
light
shallow
2
sea
4 deep
8
3
cotton
near
hard
6
5 soft
6
1
trousers dead
water
6 mountain
2
5
5
blackbird
dark
white
7 black
12
1
1
skillful
useful
8 hand
foot
13
1
1
inconvenient
length
9 short
long
12
1
1
10 smooth
X
order
army
obey
4
11 command
3
1
water
soft
12 woman
2
man
11
1
pure
snow
hot
13 cold
6
1
1
quick
blind
fast
14 slow
7
5
1
pure clean
black
15 white
8
3
1
cloth
2
thread
sharp
16 needle
5 3
mother
lovely
9
17 girl
boy
3
1
happy
18 health
wealth
2
sick
5
1
romance
2
stars
19 moon
sun
2
7
eunuch
20 king
rich
queen
2
2
8
159
Table lb: Analysis of English prompts and responses
3rd most
2nd most
prompt
1st most
common response
common response
common response
furniture
1 table
desk
chair
2
4
7
2 dark
black
night
light
4 4
2
human
3 man
woman strong
3
5
3
shallow
4 deep
sea
dark
4
3
3
sofa
light
5 soft
hard
2
5
1
6 mountain
valley
high
4
hill
4
1
7 black
dark
white
colour
4 2
5
foot
8 hand
finger
body
4
5
1
9 short
length
tall
2
long
4
1
river
10 smooth
soft
rough
2
3
1
sentence
order request
2
11 command
6
12 woman
water
4
man lady
4
1
snow
winter
13 cold
hot
3
3
1
walk
relax
14 slow
fast
2
5
1
clean
15 white
black
snow
4
2
1
clothes
sharper
16 needle
thread
4
3
1
17 girl young
4
lady
boy
5
1
strong
18 health
body
wealth
3
3
1
romantic
night
2
19 moon
sun
3
3
emperor
20 king
crown
2
3
queen
5
23
to