Exploration of the relationship between word-association and learners’ lexical development with a focus on American L1 and Croatian L2 speakers

Abstract

Vocabulary acquisition is a dynamic process and there is a constant change in the way words are stored in the mental lexicon. Word association tests are used in linguistic research to observe to which extent mental mapping can be understood. This paper presents the results of a word association game consisting of seven words administered to second language speakers, and native speakers for comparative purposes. The results indicate the possibility of a link between experiences and associations, which leads to the recommendation for teachers to create activities and new experiences that demand the learner"s personal involvement in expanding their vocabulary.

A Study on the Developmental Features of Yi Students’ Chinese Mental Lexicon

“…A positive correlation between L2 proficiency and the proportion of encyclopedic associations was also found. Although this finding contradicted some research published earlier ( Séguin, 2015 ; Li and Wang, 2016b ), it was in agreement with Khazaeenezhad and Alibabaee’s (2013) study. To get it clear on how L2 proficiency affects the frequency and the proportion of encyclopedic responses in word associations, further research is needed.…”

“…In Li and Jiang’s (2015) study, only 0.4% of phonological associations have been reported by native Chinese speakers and 0.5 and 2.8% by Australian intermediate and elementary Chinese L2 learners respectively. Séguin (2015 , p. 92) found that “phonological similarities, being rare, would not seem to be playing an important role.” The other assumption asserts that the L2 mental lexicon is highly or even mainly dependent on form-based associations. A higher percentage of form-based associations have been found in NNSs than in NSs in many previous studies ( Meara, 1978 ; Zhang, 2005 ; Fitzpatrick, 2006 ; Fu et al, 2009 ; Xie, 2009 ; Li and Wang, 2016b ; Jiang and Zhang, 2021 ).…”

“… Nissen and Henriksen (2006) found that Danish English L2 learners in high school produced more syntagmatic responses than paradigmatic responses. Séguin (2015) found that Croatian EFL learners at the beginning, middle, and advanced levels all had produced a large number of syntagmatic and encyclopedic associations, while the paradigmatic associations were relatively fewer; he also pointed out that the higher the learners’ L2 levels were, the more syntagmatic and paradigmatic associations and less encyclopedic associations would be given. This, in a sense, agreed with Khazaeenezhad and Alibabaee (2013) , who found that although the paradigmatic shift occurred, English learners of both low and high levels produced more syntagmatic associations.…”

“…It is difficult to control all these factors in a single study. Most existing studies have only considered one or two aspects ( Jiang, 2002 ; Namei, 2004 ; Nissen and Henriksen, 2006 ; Zareva, 2007 ; Xie, 2009 ; Khazaeenezhad and Alibabaee, 2013 ; Li and Jiang, 2015 ; Séguin, 2015 ; Li and Wang, 2016a , b ; Lu and Lim, 2019 ; Jiang and Zhang, 2021 ). A study taking an integrative consideration of more influencing factors is valuable.…”

“…A survey of literature showed that a large number of studies have been conducted on L2 mental lexicon. However, most of these studies were taking learners of English as subjects ( Zhang, 2010a , b , 2013 ; Billiris, 2011 ; Khazaeenezhad and Alibabaee, 2013 ; Harrison, 2015 ; Séguin, 2015 ; Li and Wang, 2016a , b ; El-Dakhs, 2017 ; Lu and Lim, 2019 ; Jiang and Zhang, 2021 ). The studies on CSL learners were quite few ( Jiang, 2002 ; Li and Jiang, 2015 ; Wu, 2017 ).…”