Cognates in Vocabulary Size Testing - a Distorting Influence?
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Volume two, Issue three
July 2012
Cognates in Vocabulary Size Testing – a Distorting Influence? EOIN JORDAN Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University Bio Data: Eoin Jordan (MA, University of Nottingham) currently works as an English tutor at Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University in China. His research interests include vocabulary acquisition, L1 transfer, and English pronunciation. Abstract This article examines the issue of cognates in frequency-based vocabulary size testing. Data from a pilot study for a cognatecontrolled English vocabulary size test was used to assess whether a group of Japanese university English learners (n=60) were more successful at responding to cognate items than noncognate ones in three 1000 word frequency bands on a Japanese-English translation task. The results showed a statistically significant difference between scores achieved on cognate and noncognate items at the 2000 and 3000 frequency levels, but not at the 1000 frequency level. The findings suggest that cognate items may be easier for test-takers to respond to than noncognate ones of similar frequency, indicating the importance of ensuring that their respective proportions in tests are representative of those inherent in the frequency bands they have been sampled from. It is also argued that such representativeness may best be achieved via a stratified item sampling approach. Keywords: vocabulary, test, cognates, loan-words, Japanese, English Introduction Cognate words, that is those that ‘[come] naturally from the same root, or [represent] the same original word, with differences due to subsequent separate phonetic development’ (OED Online, 2010), are undoubtedly encountered by learners from many L1 backgrounds during their study of English. While it is commonly known that a large number of English words share a root with other European tongues, it is also the case that some more linguistically distant languages have absorbed a great deal of vocabulary from, or that is cognate with, English too. In particular, a body of work by Daulton (1998, 1999, 2003, 2008) suggests that a large proportion of high frequency English vocabulary is cognate for Japanese learners, and asserts that these words can be utilized to assist Japanese students in their language studies. It should be noted that the vocabulary items which Daulton examines are also sometimes described as ‘loan words’ (as in Kay (1995)). While there is some controversy over
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Language Testing in Asia
Volume two, Issue three
July 2012
which term is most appropriate, these items are referred to as cognates here in order to maintain consistency with Daulton’s work. The effect that cognateness of a word has on how easy it is to recognize and learn has been investigated in depth by several researchers (De Groot & Keijzer, 2000; Ellis & Beaton, 1993; Hall, 2002; Lotto & De Groot, 1998). Their findings indicate that cognate words are indeed easier to acquire than noncognate ones, which in turn suggests that cognates do have the potential to be utilized effectively in language
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