Probing into native and nonnative students' mental lexicon: a case of word association comparison

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Islamic Azad University

Department of English, Shiraz Branch

Probing into native and nonnative students' mental lexicon: a case of word association comparison

A. Marzban, Ph.D. candidate in TEFL, Professor

M.S. Bagheri, Ph.D. in TEFL, Assistant рrofessor

E. Rassaei, Ph.D. in TEFL, Associate Professor

F. Sadighi, Ph.D. in TEFL, Professor

Abstract

The present study compared British English speakers' (native) and Iranian EFL learners' (nonnative) mental lexicon structure focusing on how words are selected and used by the two groups. The types of word association links, syntagmatic and paradigmatic, more frequently applied by the two groups of the participants, were probed into. To this end, 40 native and 40 nonnative college students, both male and female, were compared as far as mental lexicon was concerned. Accordingly, through the Oxford Placement Test (OPT), the nonnative subjects were assigned to three ability levels; namely, high, mid and low. Next, the Word Association Test (WAT) was administered respectively to all native and nonnative participants. The comparison of the WAT results through a series of Chi-square tests and a test of Mann-Whitney indicated that the employed word association links varied among the native and nonnative participants. The findings revealed that the low and mid level nonnatives which comprised a majority of Iranian EFL learners employed the syntagmatic relation to a greater extent than the high-level nonnatives. However, only one resemblance was observed between the natives and the high-level nonnatives who frequently applied the paradigmatic link. Thus, it was concluded that the advanced Iranian learners performed in a similar way as that of the native English speakers; as a result, it was suggested that the improvement in the proficiency level could lead to a change in making mental links. The findings would contribute to the psychological concerns in language teaching and learning in most academic contexts of higher age ranges.

Key words: mental lexicon, word association, paradigmatic link, syntagmatic relation, mental links.

Анотація

Спроби аналізу ментального лексикону носіїв та не носіїв мови: випадок асоціативного порівняння слова

А. Маржан, аспірант, М.С. Багері, Ф. Задігі, Е. Расеі, к.п.н., кафедра англійської мови, Ширазький філіал, Ісламський університет Азад, Шираз, Іран

У запропонованій статті порівнюється структура ментального лексикону англійської мови британських носіїв мови та іранців, які вивчають англійську мову як іноземну. Увага приділялась тому, як слова вибираються та використовуються двома групами досліджуваних - носіїв та не носіїв мови. Були проаналізовані типи поєднань словникових асоціацій, синтагматичні та парадигматичні зв'язки, які частіше використовуються двома групами. В експерименті взяли участь 40 англомовних носіїв та 40 не носіїв мови - студентів чоловічої та жіночої статі. Порівнювався їхній ментальний лексикон. Відповідно до Оксфордського тесту визначення рівня володіння англійською мовою (OPT) немовні суб'єкти були розподілені на три групи рівнями сформованості вмінь: високий, середній та низький. Далі було запропоновано асоціативний словниковий тест (WAT) як носіям, так і не носіям мови. Порівняння результатів тесту (WAT) за допомогою серії тестів Хи-квадрату та тесту Мана-Уітні дало змогу встановити, що зв'язки між словами варіюються між носіями та не носіями мови. Результати показали, що не носії мови, які утворювали більшість іранських студентів і вивчали англійську як іноземну, більшою мірою використовували синтагматичні зв'язки. Проте, лише один із учасників, який вивчав мову, використовував у висловлюваннях парадигматичні зв'язки, як і носії мови. Таким чином, був зроблений висновок про те, що студенти, які володіють мовою на високому рівні, використовують у висловлюваннях ті ж самі ментальні зв'язки, що і носії мови. Це дає змогу запропонувати заходи з покращення професійного рівня володіння мовою, що призводить до зміни ментальних зв'язків та зможе внести корективи щодо психологічної проблеми навчання мови та її вивчення у більш академічному контексті та на вищому рівні.

Ключові слова: ментальний лексикон, слово-асоціація, парадигматичні зв'язки, синтагматичні зв'язки, ментальні зв'язки.

Аннотация

Попытки анализа ментального лексикона носителей и не носителей языка: случай ассоциативного сравнения слова

Маржан Афруз, Багери Садег Мохамед, Задиги Фироз, Расеи Эзан

В статье сравнивается структура ментального лексикона английского языка британских носителей языка и иранцев, изучающих английский как иностранный. Внимание уделялось тому, как выбираются и используются слова этими двумя группами респондентов. Были проанализированы типы сочетаний словарных ассоциаций, синтагматические и парадигматические связи, чаще используемые двумя группами. Выводы: 40 англоязычных и 40 не носителей языка - студентов мужского и женского пола, приняли участие в эксперименте, посвященного сравнению их ментального лексикона. Согласно Оксфордскому тесту определения уровня владения английским языком (OPT) не носители английского языка были распределены по группам в зависимости от уровня сформированности речевых умений: высокий, средний и низкий. Далее был для выполнения был предложен ассоциативный словарный тест (WAT) как носителям, так и не носителям языка. Сравнение результатов теста (WAT) с помощью серии тестов Хи-квадрат и теста Мана-Уитни позволило установить, что связи между словами варьируются у носителей и не носителей языка. Результаты показали, что не носители языка, которыми были большинство иранских студентов, изучающих английский язык как иностранный, в большей степени использовали синтагматические связи. Однако, только один из участников, изучавший язык, использовал в речи парадигматические связи, как и носители языка. Таким образом мы пришли к выводам, что студенты, владеющие языком на высоком уровне, используют в речи те же ментальные связи, что и носители языка. Такие факты позволяют предпринять меры по улучшению профессионального уровня владения языком, что приводит к изменению ментальных связей и сможет внести коррективы в психологическую проблему обучения языку и его изучения в более академическом контексте и на высшем уровне.

Ключевые слова: ментальный лексикон, слово-ассоциация, парадигматические связи, синтагматические связи, ментальные связи.

Introduction

According to Aitchison (2003), words are fascinating and we depend on them as part of our everyday life. As McCarthy (1990) puts it, vocabulary is of considerable importance to communicating in a foreign language which cannot happen in a meaningful way without sufficient words to express a wide variety of meanings. As such, vocabulary acquisition is a main concern for EFL learners, and it is a main focus of their interest and attention. Learning how to link between words is one of the most significant ways of learning vocabulary in foreign language acquisition, which is usually ignored and has not received the attention it is worthy of in Iran. By doing this comparative study, word association will be hopefully paid more attention.

Studies on first and second language word association, language organization and the related mechanisms that allow us to retrieve the words we know immediately and correctly, have been of interest to linguists and psycholinguists over the recent years. Psycholinguistic studies have shown that words are not stored in the mental lexicon as single independent items, but form clusters or webs with other related concepts so that words acquire their full meaning in reference to related terms (Aitchison, 1994, cited in Russ, 2010).

Focusing on how words are selected and used by both native English speakers and Iranian EFL learners, i.e. the strategies involved in finding the chosen words by them and the central role of mental lexicon in language processing constitute the main aims of this study. Thus, the significant steps taken in this study are looking for the existence of any differences or similarities between native and different levels of nonnative mental lexicon, i.e. the differences or similarities in the word association strategies (syntagmatic or paradigmatic) they may employ and the particular strategies that are applied more by the two groups.

Literature Review

Mental Lexicon

The mental lexicon is a metaphor used to describe how words might be stored in the mind and retrieved. Commonly cited metaphors include descriptions of the mental lexicon as a dictionary, a thesaurus, an encyclopedia, a library, a computer, a network, and a web (McCarthy, 1990). The mental lexicon is complex, far beyond our current level of understanding or ability to create a complete model based on measurable data: a metaphorical description is therefore limited in its representation and should be treated with caution (Wilks & Meara, 2002; Coulthard et al., 2000). Nevertheless, metaphors can be devices for describing what is otherwise beyond comprehension, and, arguably, they have the potential to push our thinking and deepen our understanding.

The mental lexicon is perceived to be multi-dimensional with underlying semantic organizing principles, indicated by word associations. It is affected by wide ranging variables which differ from one individual to the next, and change in both time and space (Carter, 1987). Research into bilinguals and second language acquisition has indicated similarities suggestive of an overlap between the L1 and L2 mental lexicon (Grabois, 1999; Coulthard et al., 2000; Swan, 1997; Carter, 1987). Aitchison (2003) points to evidence supporting `a single integrated network' whilst conceding that the organization of the mental lexicon in bilingual and multilingual speakers requires further investigation.

According to Barrow (2011), when looking into the mental lexicon, considering links between a person's language knowledge and language usage are important (Aitchison, 1998); however, acquiring word meaning is a complex process (Henriksen, 1999). The mental lexicon determines how a word is written, pronounced, its part of speech and what a word means (Garnham, 1985). It has been described as a `web of words' and a network which has a multidimensional complexity (Wilks & Meara, 2002). A mental map, the same as the plan of the London Underground System, is a network which is actually much more complex (Aitchison, 2003). There is no guarantee that human minds work in a neat and economical fashion, as some words are not easy to retrieve, however, the lexicon is an intricate system and words can be found and selected quickly (Aitchison, 2003).

Structural Similarities / Differences in the L1 and L2 Mental Lexicon

According to Aitchison (2003), the mental lexicon is an internally joined system, however the analysis of these structural similarities or differences has been a controversial issue in Lexical research. It has been claimed that an L1 lexicon is structurally different from the L2 lexicon (Channell, 1990). Meara (1983) asserts that there are major differences between the structure of the L1 and L2 mental lexicon, since connections made by L2 speakers are less steady than native speakers, in addition phonetic links are often more common in L2 than L1 associates. However, according to Wolter (2001) although the L2 lexicon may be less developed as syntagmatic links are dominant, there are structural similarities between the L1 and L2 lexicon. However, this may not mean that the L2 lexicon is less structurally notable, as paradigmatic links may not play as crucial a role in the L2 lexicon than in the L1 lexicon (Wolter, 2001). It has also been recommended that being mostly phonetic, L2 responses require less lexical sophistication than paradigmatic or syntagmatic associates (Wolter, 2001).

Word Association Types

According to Peppard (2007), two main organizing principles of language that are focused by the majority of word association literature include: syntagmatic (chain) and paradigmatic (choice) associations. Syntagmatic relations are those that would be related by a phrase or syntactic structure. Paradigmatic associations, on the other hand, involve the other words that could replace the target word. These main associations in turn embrace certain smaller parts. The subdivisions of syntagmatic links include collocation, multi-word units and encyclopedic knowledge. The subgroups of paradigmatic links consist of coordination, hyponymy and synonymy. As Peppard (2007) suggested, in previous research native speakers tended to respond to word association stimuli paradigmatically while non- native speakers tended to respond syntagmatically (Coulthard et al., 2000; Meara, 1982). Word associations can only be based on their phonological or orthographic links besides the paradigmatic/syntagmatic distinction. Some responses, labeled encyclopaedic responses, are related to one's personal knowledge about the word. Finally another type of responses which are not so common and usually given by low-level language learners are referred to as clang responses.

Word Association Tests

The British psychologist, Sir Francis Galton first developed the word association test in the early nineteenth century. It was later refined by Wilhelm Wundt near the end of the nineteenth century. As Stevens (1994) suggests, it was originally used as a psychological tool to investigate the subconscious mind, and more recently applied by psycholinguists to look into the mental lexicon. Galton picked seventy- five words randomly, looked at them in turn, getting down the first two words that came to his head as a result right away. Regarding the consequences of Galton, Aitchison (2003: 24) wrote: «The records lay bare the foundations of a man's thoughts with curious distinctness and show his mental anatomy with more truth and vividness than he himself would possibly care to publish to the world».

Channell (in McCarthy, 1990: 35) suggests that «we should not necessarily assume that the mind organizes the lexicon of a second language in the same way as it does its first». As Piper and Leicester (1980) concluded, significant differences were found between beginner ESL students and native speakers however these differences decreased between advanced ESL learners and native speakers. According to Aitchison (2003), the most common relation between L1 speaker test responses is coordination, whereas collocation, superordination and synonymy also occur continually.

Soderman (1993) interestingly accounted for the shift in response type. As she indicated, this shift should be associated with the growth of single words in the lexicon of a native speaker or foreign language learner without considering their level of proficiency. It was suggested that the individual words being incorporated in the lexicon are influenced by lexical development which is a slow process. The data of the study seem to back this suggestion that a surprisingly large number of syntagmatic responses as well as a number of clang associates were produced by even the most advanced L2 learners.

mental english lexicon british iranian

Research Questions

1. Do native and different proficiency levels of nonnative subjects follow the same strategies (either syntagmatic or paradigmatic) when finding the words they want to use?

2 Are there any differences between the native and the high level (proficient) nonnative subjects in terms of making mental links?

Method

Participants

The participants who took part in the study were totally 110 adult native and non-native English students, both male and female, aged between 20 and 30. The natives cooperated from Metropolitan college in Birmingham, United Kingdom and the non-natives participated from Shamim Arghavan Language Institute in Shiraz, Iran. Some participants were excluded from the data analysis due to their uncategorized responses or careless coding. This brought the final number of participants to 80 subjects who were divided into two groups equal in number, i.e. 40 native speakers of English and 40 Iranian EFL learners.

InstrumentationWord Association Test (WAT)

It is a test of personality and mental function in which the subject is required to respond to each of a series of words with the first word that comes to mind or with a word of a specified class of words as antonyms. WAT was first developed as a research instrument by Francis Galton, later refined by Wilhelm Wundt near the end of the nineteenth century and was subsequently developed by Carl Jung as a clinical diagnostic tool which usually consisted of a hundred stimulus words that were read out singly to a subject who was to answer as quickly as possible with the word that occurred to him/her (Stevens, 1994). The word association test used in this study was formulated based on Khazaeenezhad and Alibabaee's test (2013) which was in turn devised based on Wolter's test (2002). It consisted of 10 words as the prompts from the Edinburgh Associative Thesaurus (EAT, Kiss et al., 1973; available online at it was also a single response test. The researcher employed Cronbach's alpha to assess the go togetherness of the WAT items. The reliability of the WAT scale equalled .76, which was over 70 percent and thus a satisfactory value.

Oxford Placement Test (OPT)

The OPT developed by Oxford University Press, provides an easy, practical way of grading students and measures a student's general language ability so you can place him or her into the appropriate level class for a language course. This test was applied to place the nonnative participants into three ability groups of elementary, intermediate and high intermediate that were named as low, mid and high levels respectively.

Data Collection Procedures

The instruments, namely OPT and WAT were administered to the participants over a 2-week period. Participants were given 30 minutes to do the OPT but the WAT was not timed. This was considered by the researcher because it was decided that timing responses could create feelings of anxiety, and would contradict ethical considerations. The OPT, which was only administered to the nonnative participants, was employed to divide them into three ability groups. Out of 40 non-natives, 12 Students were ranked as «elementary», 15 as «intermediate» and 13 as «high intermediate» in terms of proficiency. They were named as low, mid and high levels respectively. Then the word association test (WAT) was administered to all native and different levels of nonnative subjects. It consisted of a list of ten stimulus words that was given to each participant individually. Students were encouraged to fill in each blank with the first word that they could think of when they read the word.

There were no right or wrong answers. Responses were then decided on and categorized as syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations (called word association strategies in the present study) by the researcher with the aid of Dr. Firooz Saddighi as a psycholinguistics consultant. To ensure reliability, this procedure was repeated in exactly the same way with each of the 80 native and nonnative participants.

Data Analysis Procedures

The statistics were processed through SPSS version 23.0. To investigate and compare the performance of the participants on WAT and to analyze the data, and since WAT was a categorical scale, the Chi- square was employed and calculated as a proper inferential statistics to see if the comparison of the abundance of data was allowed. Then, due to the small number of the participants, the non-parametric test of Mann- Whitney was employed as another statistical method to liken the performance of the subjects on WAT.

Findings