不同二语水平者的多义词表征通达机制研究

A Probe into the Effect of L2 Learners' Polysemous Representation and Its Lexical Access

本文旨在调查我国不同二语水平者心理词库中的多义词表征及其在词汇语义通达中的影响效应。参与调查的受试为某高校60名英语专业三年级和一年级在校学生,分别构成本研究的高、低二语水平组。整个实验在E-prime程序下进行。实验测试工具主要由20个英语多义词短语及与其对应的两个选项(分别含多义关系和主题/类属关系)构成,要求受试在电脑上判断目标多义词(或启动词)与其对应选项的语义类属。调查结果发现:二语水平成为影响多义通达的显著变量;但就词频与多义通达而言,不同二语水平受试选择高频多义词的比例最小,而选择低频多义词的频率最高。本研究获得以下结论:1)二语心理词库中的多义词表征的发展路径是从核心表征走向独立表征;2)二语水平与多义词通达之间存在负相关关系;3)多义词词频对多义词通达存在不对称性影响。

This empirical study is undertaken to investigate the representation of polysemous senses in the Chinese EFL＇s mental lexicon,and its effect on the lexico-semantic access at different EFL proficiency levels.The 60 participants were selected from the juniors and freshmen in a university in China as high and low L2 proficiency learners and the experiment was conducted on the computer via the E-prime suite.The instrument for the data collection was composed of 20 prompt phrases and two corresponding choices（with one polysemous and one thematic/taxonomic relations） shown later after each of the prompt phrases on the computer screen.Participants were required to decide which of the two capitalized words in the choices went best with the capitalized polysemous word in the prompt target to form a semantic category.Results acquired from participants＇ responses showed that the L2 proficiency level appeared to be a significant variable or factor that affected participants＇ semantic access to polysemous words,and all participants tended to choose low-frequency polysemous words more than high-frequency ones.Three assumptions and conclusions have been drawn as follows： 1） polysemous sense representation in L2 mental lexicon takes the route of developing from ＂Core to Independence＂;2） negative correlation exists between L2 proficiency and the semantic access of polysemous words;and 3） there exists an asymmetrical impact of word frequency on the semantic access of polysemous words.