The Acquisition of Classical Origin Words by Chinese, French, and Finnish Learners

Abstract

This comparative study evaluates the vocabulary knowledge of comparable groups of English learners from three L1 backgrounds: French, Finnish, and Mandarin Chinese. An investigation of differences in vocabulary knowledge revealed that vocabulary of Greek or Latin origin is much more likely to be known by French speaking students than words of non Graeco-Latin origin. Finnish students did much better on words of non Graeco-Latin origin, although they still outperformed the French speakers on Graeco-Latin words. The performance of the native Chinese speakers was the worst of the three groups, and there was no significant difference with this group between the two sets of words. The findings have clear implications for the teaching of academic English vocabulary in EAP settings where students share an L1. In mixed L1 settings, instructors may need to take account of variation in vocabulary knowledge among different L1 student groups.As is widely known, a large proportion of English vocabulary is of Graeco-Latin (GL) origin. Most native English speakers would agree that frequent use of GL words could be an indication of a greater vocabulary and indeed of a higher level of education. Corson (1982Corson ( , 1985, posited the existence of a lexical bar in English, whereby members of certain social classes, who do not acquire the L1 vocabulary necessary to express more abstract technical and academic thought, are denied full access to the curriculum as they go through the school system. In English, a high proportion of scientific and technical terms take the form of GL words. GL words are more difficult to acquire inasmuch as specialist vocabulary tends to represent more difficult concepts.Whilst social class, prosperity, and a range of other environmental factors may influence the degree to which Asian learners acquire English, it is of course extremely unlikely that such factors have any impact on the type of vocabulary learned. However, the lack of GL cognates in a given language will probably place its native speakers at a disadvantage when learning English vocabulary. It can plausibly be argued that a lexical bar similar to Corson's exists for certain EFL learners; the height of this bar would be in inverse proportion to the density of GL