Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T22:28:12.308Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The crosslinguistic assessment of foreign language vocabulary learning

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Vera Kempe  and
Brian Macwhinney
Vera Kempe
Affiliation:
University of Toledo
Brian Macwhinney*
Affiliation:
Carnegie Mellon University
*
Brian MacWhinney, Department of Psychology, Carnegie Mellon Univeristy, Pittsburgh, PA 15213
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This study examines a task that can be applied in a uniform fashion across different languages to compare levels of vocabulary development in foreign language learning. Experiment I tested native speakers of Russian and German and demonstrated the basic comparability of the subjects' judgments for both words and nonwords. The results for Russian showed an influence of word length, which can be understood in terms of the Orthographical Depth Hypothesis. Experiment 2 applied the same task to learners of Russian and German and found that learners of Russian had achieved a lower level of vocabulary control than learners of German at comparable language exposure levels. This disadvantage for Russian can be attributed to the novelty of the Cyrillic graphemic system, which restricts the accessibility of written language input at early stages. There was a nonlinear increase over time in word sensitivity, which can be attributed to the increasing contribution of lexical plausibility factors at later stages of learning. Moreover, the lexical decision task appeared to be sensitive to inhibitory effects of concurrently studied languages, as well as to decay due to the lack of regular exposure. Together, these results indicate that the lexical decision task can be a useful tool for the assessment and crosslinguistic comparison of lexical development in foreign language learning.

Type
Articles
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 17 , Issue 2 , April 1996 , pp. 149 - 183
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Anderson, R. C., & Freebody, P. (1983). Reading comprehension and the assessment and acquisition of word knowledge. Advances in Reading Language Research, 2, 231–256.Google Scholar
Baayen, R. H., Piepenbrock, R., & van, Rijn H. (1993). The CELEX Lexical Database. Philadelphia: Linguistic Data Consortium.Google Scholar
Balota, D. A., & Chumbley, J. I. (1984). Are lexical decisions a good measure of lexical access? The role of word frequency in the neglected decision stage. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 10, 340–357.Google ScholarPubMed
Balota, D. A., & Chumbley, J. I. (1985). The locus of word-frequency effects on the pronunciation task. Journal of Memory and Language, 24, 89–106.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coltheart, M., Curtis, B., Atkins, P., & Haller, M. (1993). Models of reading aloud: Dual-route and parallel distributed processing approaches. Psychological Review, 100, 589–608.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feldman, L. B., & Turvey, M. T. (1983). Word recognition in Serbo-Croation in phonologically analytic. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 9(2), 288–298.Google ScholarPubMed
Flege, J., & Davidian, R. (1984). Transfer and developmental processes in adult foreign language speech production. Applied Psycholinguistics, 5, 323–347.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fodor, J. (1983). The modularity of mind: An essay on faculty psychology. Cambridge: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Forster, K. (1976). Accessing the mental lexicon. In Wales, R. & Walker, E. (Eds.), New approaches to language mechanisms (pp. 77–103). New York: North Holland.Google Scholar
Forster, K. (1985). Lexical acquisition and the modular lexicon. Language and Cognitive Processes, 1, 87–108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Friederici, A., Weissenborn, J., & Kail, M. (1991). Pronoun comprehension in aphasia: A comparison of three languages. Journal of Memory and Language, 1–21(29), 336–360.Google Scholar
Frost, R. (1994). Prelexical and postlexical strategies in reading: Evidence from a deep and a shallow orthography. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 20, 116–129.Google Scholar
Frost, R., Katz, L., & Bentin, S. (1987). Strategies for visual word recognition and orthographical depth: A multilingual comparison. Journal of Experiment Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 13, 104–115.Google ScholarPubMed
Gordon, B. (1983). Lexical access and lexical decision: Mechanisms of frequency sensitivity. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 22, 22–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grainger, J., & Dijkstra, T. (1992). On the representation and use of language information in bilinguals. In Harris, R. (Ed.), Cognitive processing in bilinguals. Amsterdam: North- Holland.Google Scholar
Johnson, J., & Newport, E. (1989). Critical period effects in second language learning: The influence of maturational state on the acquisition of English as a second language. Cognitive Psychology, 21, 60–99.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Johnson, J., & Newport, E. (1991). Critical period effects on universal properties of language: The status of subjacency in the acquisition of a second language. Cognition. 39, 215–258.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Keatley, C., Spinks, J., & de, Odder B. (1994). Asymmetical cross-language priming effects. Memory and Cognition. 22, 70–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keller, H. H. (1991). Word frequency and pedagogical value: contrasting textbook vocabulary lists with word frequency counts. Slavic and East European Journal, 35, 228–244.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kilborn, K., & Ito, T. (1989). Sentence processing in Japanese-English and Dutch-English bilinguals. In MacWhinney, B. & Bates, E. (Eds.), The crosslinguistic study of sentence processing. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lukatela, G., Popadic, D., Ognjenovic, P., & Turvey, M. T. (1980). Lexical decision in a phonologically shallow orthography. Memory and Cognition, 8, 124–132.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacWhinney, B. (1992). Transfer and competition in second language learning. In Harris, R. (Ed.), Cognitive processing in bilinguals. Amsterdam: Elsevier.Google Scholar
MacWhinney, B. (1995). Language specific prediction in foreign language acquisition. Applied Psycholinguistics. Forthcoming.Google Scholar
MacWhinney, B., & Bates, E. (Eds.), (1989), The crosslinguistic study of sentence processing. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
MacWhinney, B., Bates, E., & Kliegl, R. (1984). Cue validity and sentence interpretation in English, German, and Italian. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 23, 127–150.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McDonald, J. (1987). Sentence interpretation in bilingual speakers of English and Dutch. Applied sycholinguistics, 8, 379–414.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McDonald, J., & MacWhinney, B. (1995). The time course of anaphor resolution: Effects of implicit verb causality and gender. Journal of Memory and Language, 34, 543–566.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meara, P., & Buxton, B. (1987). An alternative to multiple-choice vocabulary tests. Language Testing, 4, 142–154.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paradis, M., & Libben, G. (1987). The assessment of bilingual aphasia. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Ratcliff, R. (1993). Methods for dealing with reaction time outliers. Psychological Bulletin, 114, 510–532.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schriefers, H., Meyer, A., & Levelt, W. (1990). Exploring the time course of lexical access in language production: Picture-word interference studies. Journal of Memory and Language, 29, 86–102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sebastián-Galles, N. (1991). Reading by analogy in a shallow orthography. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 17, 471–477.Google Scholar
Seidenberg, M., & McClellan, J. (1989). A distributed, developmental model of word recognition and naming. Psychological Review, 96, 523–568.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Simpson, G., & Krueger, M. (1991). Selective access of homograph meanings in sentence context. Journal of Memory and Language, 30, 627–643.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stone, G. (1994, 11). Top-down and bottom-up phonology in visual word recognition. Paper presented at the Psychonomics Society Meeting, St. Louis, MO.Google Scholar
Stone, G. O. & Van, Orden G. C. (1993). Strategic control of processing in word recognition. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 19, 744–774.Google ScholarPubMed
Swinney, D. (1979). Lexical access during sentence comprehension: (re)consideration of context effects. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 18, 645–659.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walley, A. C. (1988). Spoken word recognition by young children and adults. Cognitive Development, 3, 137–165.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
White, L. (1990). The verb-movement parameter in second language acquisition. Language Acquisition, 4, 337–360.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
White, L. (1991). Adverb placement in second language acquisition: Some effects of positive negative evidence in the classroom. Second Language Research, 7, 133–161.Google Scholar
Wulfeck, B., Bates, E., Juarez, L., Opie, M., Friederici, A., MacWhinney, B., & Zurif, E. (1989). Pragmatics in aphasia: Crosslinguistic evidence. Language and Speech, 32, 315–336.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Zasorina, L. N. E. (1977). Castotnyj slovar' russkogo jazyka. Moscow: Russkij jazyk.Google Scholar