Lexical Guessing in Context in EFL Reading Comprehension

Abstract

No one really knows to what extent students use context in guessing the meaning of new words. Some teachers of advanced learners of EFL (English as a foreign language) prefer to expose students to new words in context, hoping students will acquire the vocabulary through contextual clues; whereas others explicitly teach and drill vocabulary. The present study asks whether some types of words are more easily guessed than others, and also whether better students use context more effectively than weaker students do in guessing unknown words. Most importantly, to what extent does context help in guessing, if at all?Sixty first-year students were given a list of 70 words to translate into the mother tongue. A week later, each student was given a copy of the same word list but with the addition of a text containing all the words.An analysis of student answering patterns showed that context helped lexical guessing in only 13 per cent of the responses for only 24 per cent of the words. Word guessability was shown to be less a function of using the context than of applying 'preconceived notions'. Most frequent errors were with polysemes, morphological troublemakers, idioms and synophones. Although more proficient students knew more words than less proficient students, they were not able to use context more effectively. RESUMEDeviner le vocabulaire en contexte: jusqu'a quel point est-ce gue les e'tudiants emploient du contexte en devinant le sens des mots? Nu1 ne sait effectivement jusqu'h quel point les Ctudiants se servent du contexte pour 0141-O423/84/0701-15 0 1 984 Journal ofResearch in Reading (UKRA) 15 16 M. BENSOUSSAN AND B. LAUFER deviner le sens des mots qu'ils rencontrent pour la premikre fois. A I'Cgard des etudiants avances dans l'acquisition de l'anglais comme langue Ctrangere , certains professeurs font apprendre le vocabulaire d'une maniere explicite et formelle, tandis que d'autres professeurs preferent presenter des mots nouveaux dans un contexte, en esperant que le vocabulaire sera appris a partir des indices contextuels. Cette etude s'occupe des questions suivantes: 1. le contexte. Jusqu'a quel point le contexte peut-il aider B faire des conjectures relatives au lexique? 2. la 'devinabilite' d'un mot. Jusqu'i quel point existe-t-il des mots (ou des catkgories de mots) qu'on peut deviner plus vite en contexte que d'autres? 3 . le niveau de l'e'tudiant. Jusqu'a quel point les etudiants experimentes (i.e., de 'bons' Ctudiants selon l'echelle de comprehension du lexique EFL) sont-ils plus efficaces dans l'emploi due contexte pour deviner des mots peu familiers que les etudiants peu competents (les lecteurs 'faibles' du EFL). On a demande B 60 enfants en premikre annee d'etude de traduire une liste de 70 mots dans leur langue maternelle. Une semaine plus tard, on a donne a chaque Ctudiant la mCme liste de mots, laquelle on avait ajoute un texte comportant tous les mots. Une analyse des erreurs faites par les etudiants a montrk que le contexten'a aide B effectuer des conjectures sur le lexique que pour 24 pour...

Lexical Processing Strategy Use and Vocabulary Learning Through Reading

“…Previous research in L2 inferencing (Bensoussan & Laufer, 1984;Haynes, 1984;Huckin & Bloch, 1993) has indicated that inferences based on word form associations rather than the use of cues from the text context often lead to inappropriate word-meaning determination. The potential for L1 cognate associations to be especially misleading was highlighted in this study by the dramatically fluctuating success rates of the learners when inferencing using L1-based word-identification processes.…”

“…Additionally, however, results suggest that the use of word form cues are typically accessed in a fast, automatic manner as part of the process of inferencing through word-identification processes. Other researchers have also noted the primacy of word form cues in the inferencing process (Bensoussan & Laufer, 1984;Haynes, 1984;Huckin & Bloch, 1993). Accordingly, it seems unlikely that we can train students to hold off their potentially automatic use of word form cues.…”

“…First, it is a communicative event in which learners engage in considerable hypothesis formation and testing about word meaning (Ellis, 1994;Haastrup, 1989Haastrup, , 1991 and, second, the rich psychological and linguistic context that text provides can act as a cognitive hook for the memory of new words (Schouten-van Parreren, 1989). However, researchers (Bensoussan & Laufer, 1984;Haastrup, 1989Haastrup, , 1991Haynes, 1984;Hulstijn, 1992) have also found that inferring is not always an easy or efficient strategy for L2 learners to use either because of text complexity (i.e., the text may not provide sufficient clues to infer) or because of reader limitations (i.e., L2 learners often do not make use of available cues or misuse them). Evidently, lexical inference is neither an efficient nor an effective vocabulary-learning strategy when L2 readers fail in their attempts to infer meaning for new words or when the meaning determined is inaccurate.…”

“…The underlying assumption has been that incidental vocabulary learning primarily occurs through the process of inferring word meaning. But some research suggests that L2 learners who are left on their own generally ignore unfamiliar words, infer only when there is a specific need, and consult sparingly and on a very selective basis (Bensoussan & Laufer, 1984;. Because attention to an unknown word seems to be a prerequisite for any learning to occur (Ellis, 1994;Gass, 1988;Schmidt, 1994), high rates of ignoring would thus severely limit the learning potential.…”

The Effects of Inferring, Verifying, and Memorizing on the Retention of L2 Word Meanings

“…Additionally, the learners should have sufficient knowledge of the context words and be skillful at inferencing. As all of these preconditions are not always satisfied in practice (see Bensoussan & Laufer, 1984;Haynes, 1993;Kelly, 1990;Laufer, 1997;Laufer & Sim, 1985;Schatz & Baldwin, 1986;Stein, 1993), it is advisable that the learners, after inferring, verify the correctness of the inferred meaning with the aid of a dictionary (Schouten-van Parreren, 1985). Moreover, such a verification stage can contribute to retention in combination with the act of writing down the inferred and verified meaning (Schouten-van Parreren; cf.…”