Psycholinguistic word information in second language oral discourse

Salsbury, Tom; Crossley, Scott A.; McNamara, Danielle S.

doi:10.1177/0267658310395851

Cited by 79 publications

(119 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…In light of the findings reported here and of the relationship between core word senses and concreteness, we argue that L2 learners likely first produce words that are more concrete (i.e., words that refer to an object, material, or person; Crossley et al, 2009; Salsbury et al, in press) and later begin to produce words that are more polysemous. Because polysemy is correlated with frequency, but likely not concreteness, words that are less frequent are acquired first.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 54%

“…Other lexical sense relations that are related to word knowledge have recently been investigated in longitudinal studies. These include hypernymy (Crossley et al, 2009), semantic coreferentiality (Crossley et al, 2008; Crossley, Salsbury, & McNamara, 2010), and word meaningfulness (Salsbury, Crossley, & McNamara, in press). These studies have generally supported the notion that L2 learners’ sense relation knowledge quickly increases with time studying a language and that the growth is likely attributable to lexical networks.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Development of Polysemy and Frequency Use in English Second Language Speakers

2010

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Spoken language data were collected from six adult second language (L2) English learners over a year-long period in order to explore the development of word polysemy and frequency use. The data were analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. In the first analysis, the growth of WordNet polysemy values and CELEX word frequency values were examined. For both indexes, significant growth was demonstrated from the 2nd to the 16th week of observation, after which values remained stable. Growth in word polysemy values also correlated with changes in word frequency, supporting the notion that frequency and polysemy effects in word use are related. A second analysis used the WordNet dictionary to explore qualitative changes in word sense use concerning six frequent lexical items in the learner corpus (think, know, place, work, play, and name). A qualitative analysis compared normalized frequencies for each word sense in the first trimester of the study to the later trimesters. Differences in the number of word senses used across trimesters were found for all six words. Analyses 1 and 2, taken together, Crossley, Salsbury, and McNamara Polysemy and Frequency Use in English L2 Speakers support the notion that L2 learners begin to use words that have the potential for more senses during the first 4 months; learners then begin to extend the core meanings of these polysemous words. These findings provide further insights into the development of lexical proficiency in L2 learners and the growth of lexical networks.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 54%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Development of Polysemy and Frequency Use in English Second Language Speakers

2010

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“…Person is a relatively familiar word but not strongly meaningful. The word property indices reported by the MRC Database have been demonstrated to be strongly predictive of human judgments of lexical competence (Crossley, Salsbury, McNamara, & Jarvis, 2011a, 2011b, human judgments of second language (L2) writing quality , the development of L2 lexical proficiency (Salsbury, Crossley, & McNamara, 2011), and text difficulty (Crossley, Allen, & McNamara, 2012;Freedle & Kostin, 1993). For each index, higher values equate to greater lexical properties (i.e., more concrete, familiar, imageable, and meaningful words).…”

Section: Lexical Indicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Role of Lexical Properties and Cohesive Devices in Text Integration and Their Effect on Human Ratings of Speaking Proficiency

Crossley

Clevinger

Kim

2014

Language Assessment Quarterly

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There has been a growing interest in the use of integrated tasks in the field of second language testing to enhance the authenticity of language tests. However, the role of text integration in test takers' performance has not been widely investigated. The purpose of the current study is to examine the effects of text-based relational (i.e., cohesion) and propositional-specific (i.e., lexical) features on subsequent source text integration in spoken responses. In addition, the current study investigates the effects of word integration on human ratings of speaking performance. Sixty test-takers' speaking samples from the listen/speak section of the TOEFL-iBT were analyzed in terms of textual integration at the lexical and cohesion level and how this integration predicted human scores of speaking proficiency. The results indicate that the properties of the source text are strongly predicative of which words test takers will integrate into their response. Moreover, it was found that text integration is an important factor that affects human ratings of speaking proficiency. The findings of the study are discussed in terms of item difficulty and construct representation.

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“…Word Meaningfulness represents how many different associations to other words a particular word has. For example, a word such as tree has more associations (e.g., branch, leaf, wood) than a word such as savant, which activates fewer associations (Salsbury et al, 2011). Measures of word Imageability, Familiarity, and Meaningfulness were all calculated based on the MRC Psycholinguistics Database norms (Coltheart 1981), which is a curated compilation of previous rating studies for these features.…”

Section: Linguistic Featuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Linguistic Features of Sarcasm and Metaphor Production Quality

Skalicky

Crossley

2018

Proceedings of the Workshop on Figurative Language Processing

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Using linguistic features to detect figurative language has provided a deeper insight into figurative language. The purpose of this study is to assess whether linguistic features can help explain differences in quality of figurative language. In this study a large corpus of metaphors and sarcastic responses are collected from human subjects and rated for figurative language quality based on theoretical components of metaphor, sarcasm, and creativity. Using natural language processing tools, specific linguistic features related to lexical sophistication and semantic cohesion were used to predict the human ratings of figurative language quality. Results demonstrate linguistic features were able to predict small amounts of variance in metaphor and sarcasm production quality.

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Psycholinguistic word information in second language oral discourse

Cited by 79 publications

References 27 publications

The Development of Polysemy and Frequency Use in English Second Language Speakers

The Development of Polysemy and Frequency Use in English Second Language Speakers

The Role of Lexical Properties and Cohesive Devices in Text Integration and Their Effect on Human Ratings of Speaking Proficiency

Linguistic Features of Sarcasm and Metaphor Production Quality

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