This study investigates how orthographic,semantic and contextual variables—including word length,concreteness,and contextual support—impact on the processing and learning of new words in a second language(L2)when fi...This study investigates how orthographic,semantic and contextual variables—including word length,concreteness,and contextual support—impact on the processing and learning of new words in a second language(L2)when first encountered during reading.Students learning English as a foreign language(EFL)were recruited to read sentences for comprehension,embedded with unfamiliar L2 words that occurred once.Immediately after this,they received a form recognition test,a meaning recall test,and a meaning recognition test.Eye-movement data showed significant effects of word length on both early and late processing of novel words,along with effects of concreteness only on late-processing eye-tracking measures.Informative contexts were read slower than neutral contexts,yet contextual support did not show any direct influence on the processing of novel words.Interestingly,initial learning of abstract words was better than concrete words in terms of form and meaning recognition.Attentional processing of novel L2 words,operationalized by total reading time,positively predicted L2 learners’recognition of new orthographic forms.Taken together,these results suggest:1)orthographic,semantic and contextual factors play distinct roles for initial processing and learning of novel words;2)online processing of novel words contributes to L2 learners’initial knowledge of unfamiliar lexical items acquired from reading.展开更多
Languages embody a lot of words that are considered as synonyms, and people just take it for granted that such words are identical in meaning without any discrimination. However, a corpus-based approach to the study o...Languages embody a lot of words that are considered as synonyms, and people just take it for granted that such words are identical in meaning without any discrimination. However, a corpus-based approach to the study of the collocational behavior of the two frequently-used pairs of synonyms （selection and option, ill and sick） reveals significant discrepancies in the use of these two pairs of synonyms by Chinese English learners and native speakers. According to the analysis, the major problems lie in the current ways of vocabulary teaching and learning. This paper aims to highlight the important role of the corpus-based collocational research in English vocabulary teaching and learning. In the end, some suggestions concerning vocabulary teaching and leaming are put forward on the basis of corpus-based research.展开更多
文摘This study investigates how orthographic,semantic and contextual variables—including word length,concreteness,and contextual support—impact on the processing and learning of new words in a second language(L2)when first encountered during reading.Students learning English as a foreign language(EFL)were recruited to read sentences for comprehension,embedded with unfamiliar L2 words that occurred once.Immediately after this,they received a form recognition test,a meaning recall test,and a meaning recognition test.Eye-movement data showed significant effects of word length on both early and late processing of novel words,along with effects of concreteness only on late-processing eye-tracking measures.Informative contexts were read slower than neutral contexts,yet contextual support did not show any direct influence on the processing of novel words.Interestingly,initial learning of abstract words was better than concrete words in terms of form and meaning recognition.Attentional processing of novel L2 words,operationalized by total reading time,positively predicted L2 learners’recognition of new orthographic forms.Taken together,these results suggest:1)orthographic,semantic and contextual factors play distinct roles for initial processing and learning of novel words;2)online processing of novel words contributes to L2 learners’initial knowledge of unfamiliar lexical items acquired from reading.
文摘Languages embody a lot of words that are considered as synonyms, and people just take it for granted that such words are identical in meaning without any discrimination. However, a corpus-based approach to the study of the collocational behavior of the two frequently-used pairs of synonyms （selection and option, ill and sick） reveals significant discrepancies in the use of these two pairs of synonyms by Chinese English learners and native speakers. According to the analysis, the major problems lie in the current ways of vocabulary teaching and learning. This paper aims to highlight the important role of the corpus-based collocational research in English vocabulary teaching and learning. In the end, some suggestions concerning vocabulary teaching and leaming are put forward on the basis of corpus-based research.
