The role of associations in vocabulary acquisition: a psycholinguistic study of indian esl learners

Learning English as a second language is an area of study which demands persistent research, probing and application of the findings. In India, English language is a part of everyday life, and the exposure to English vocabulary comes through a multitude of sources which include media, game applications and social networking among others. In many instances, even complicated and less frequent words are made familiar by these sources. However, the learners of ESL struggle for a good choice of words when they are in a situation to use the language. This has led the researcher to question how the process of vocabulary acquisition happens and how the acquired words are organised and stored. The current research is a psycholinguistic analysis of the way words are organised and associated with each other in the mental lexicon of the learners. The researcher attempts to study the role and impact of associations in vocabulary acquisition through an experimental study. The participants of the study are 120 Indian ESL learners enrolled for an undergraduate programme. They were tested with two methods of teaching vocabulary, namely the word definition method and semantic cluster method. The outcome of the study is discussed in the research paper.

Анотація

Вивчення англійської мови як другої мови є сферою дослідження, яка вимагає наполегливості, перевірки й прикладне застосування одержаних результатів. В Індії англійська мова є частиною повсякденного життя, тому частина англійської лексики має безліч джерел, які включають у себе засоби масової інформації, ігрові додатки та соціальні мережі. У багатьох випадках навіть складні та менш поширені слова стають загальновідомими завдяки вищезгаданим джерелам. Проте студенти, які вивчають англійську як другу мову стикаються з проблемою вибору правильної лексики під час конкретної мовленнєвої ситуації. Це зумовило мету цієї статті - з'ясувати, яким чином відбувається процес відбору лексики і як набуті слова організовуються та засвоюються. Це дослідження присвячене психолінгвістичному аналізу, а саме: як слова організовані й пов'язані одне з одним в ментальному лексиконі студентів. Автори роблять спробу вивчити роль і вплив асоціацій на формування словникового запасу шляхом експерименту. Учасниками дослідження були 120 індійських студентів бакалаврату, які вивчаютьанглійську як другу мову. Студентів тестували за допомогою двох методів викладання лексики, а саме методу визначення слова і методу семантичного кластера. Результати дослідження подано в цій науковій праці.

Literature review

The perspective of Psycholinguistics for vocabulary acquisition and the psycholinguistic theories that explain the acquisition and storage process have contributed a lot to the understanding of the vocabulary acquisition process. According to Schmitt (2010), “Psycholinguistics is the study of the cognitive process that supports the acquisition and use of language”. Psycholinguists explain vocabulary in terms of Mental Lexicon, a metaphor that gives the closest possible picture of the structure of human vocabulary. In the Mental Lexicon, according to the psycholinguists and their findings, the words are stored in networks and not in the form of lists like in a dictionary. These networks are made of associations connecting the words by their phonological similarities, orthographic similarities and different types of semantic connections. Aitchison(1987) visualises the network of words as `giant multi-dimensional cobweb'. Carter (1992) reinforces the idea by saying that “... words do not exist in isolation: their meanings are defined through sense relations they have with other words. ” These networks keep changing their structure and size with a person's changing vocabulary knowledge. The associations the words make with each other characterise the storage and usage of the word. At initial stages of exposure in a child, the association between words are mainly based on their phonological similarities (Aitchison, 1987). As they grow, they associate the words by their semantic affinities. However, in Second language learners, there is a more common type of association found and classified as `encyclopaedic associations' (Fitzpatrick, 2006;Meara, 2009). They are the types of associations in which the learner connects a word to one particular experience in which they encounter the word. The word knowledge is limited to the particular context and the richness of meaning remains unexplored. A native-like proficiency is achieved when a word is associated and networked with more number of words with close semantic affinities like synonymy. Researches have proved that with increasing proficiency level, learners shift towards these types of associations. The learners move from making phonological associations to semantic associations (Aitchison, 1987), reaching a higher level of proficiency when they associate a word with stronger semantic counterparts like synonyms and coordinates (Ervin, 1961; Aitchison, 1987; Schmitt, 2000; Meara, 2009).

Methods

Participants of the study

The participants of the study were 120 tertiary level learners enrolled in Bachelor's Degree programme in commerce. The learners were divided into two sections by the institution, evenly distributing them in terms of proficiency level and gender to maintain evenness in the quality of the classes. The participants were believed to have the basic training in English since they had to mandatorily take up English as a subject in their Higher Secondary Schooling (HSC) and score a minimum of 40% to get admitted into the undergraduate degree programme. The researcher has taken up the two evenly distributed groups of learners as two groups of participants for the experimental study.

Tools for the study

The research material for the study was a list of 20 words chosen from a prose piece titled “To Know When to say `It's None of Your Business'” written by Mark McCormack in the text “Textures in English” prescribed by the University of Madras. Since it can be safely assumed that the material in the text prescribed is relevant and suitable for learning, the prose piece in the text was chosen for study. The content of the prose work is based on the professional setup of a corporate office and the behaviour of the people working in the office.

For group 1 (henceforth called Word Definition (WD) Group), the words were explained in the context of the prose piece. After the completion of the prose, the words were extracted and explained again with their definitions. The participants were asked to write down the list of words with their definitions.

For group 2 (henceforth called Semantic Association (SA) Group), the selected words were explained in the context of the lesson. After the completion of the prose, the words were grouped based on their close semantic relationships and taught as four clusters (Figure 1). The list of 20 words were grouped under four categories namely, `positive attributes', `negative attributes', `roles in office' and `pay'. The similarities and differences between the words within the groups were also explained.

After three weeks, the learners of both the groups were asked to recollect as many words as possible from the prose. They were not given prior intimation about the task. The chosen words were identified, counted and compared for result analysis.

4 The study

The words recollected by each participant were analysed and the words they had recollected from the list were noted down and counted. A comparative table (Table 1) was made with the number of words that was recollected (in percentage) and the number of participants from each group. The results of the two groups were compared. The data collected from the samples were then statistically tested using ANOVA (Analysis of Variance) for the significance level of the difference between the groups.

Table 1Numerical results of the two groups

Fig. 1.Graphical representation of the results

The results (Table 1 and Figure 2) clearly indicate that the associations certainly have an impact over the learning process. There is a positive sign of better retention and recollection when the words learnt with semantically associated words. Even after the words were explained in context and with word definitions, only about 18 % of the participants were able to recollect more than 45% of the words. Whereas in the semantic grouping method, number of the participants who could recollect 45% and above is more than double (46.7%).

However, to verify if the difference is significant, a simple statistical test namely ANOVA test was applied to compare the total number of words recollected by each group. A null hypothesis was framed for the statistical analysis.

Source: Computed from primary data.

* Significant at five percent level (p value < 0.05)

The analysis of the study has helped understand the vocabulary acquisition process not merely through numbers, but through the kind of words that were easily retained and recalled. In addition, the participants' reaction and response to the different techniques reveal the cognitive process of vocabulary learning. As can be seen from the data collected and the numerical values extracted, the semanticclustering of words has a positive impact on the retention and recollection of words. During recollection, the participants showed the tendency to exhaust words under one cluster before moving on to the next cluster. This shows that the words with semantic affinities were simultaneously activated. This simultaneous activation of words which are semantically associated gives a learner a good choice of words to choose from in a particular context, leading to the enrichment of the vocabulary.

The participants' inclination to analyse the words in each cluster by the way of compare and contrast was another positive sign of their involvement in the learning process. They could learn more on the meanings of the words by learning the subtle differences with the related words. They get motivated for self-learning. Also their interest for vocabulary develops since clusters are mostly taught with a graphic aid like mapping.

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