Word Learning in L2 Chinese: from Perspectives of Learner-Related and Language-Related Factors
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Word Learning in L2 Chinese: from Perspectives of Learner‑Related and Language‑Related Factors Tianxu Chen1 Accepted: 5 October 2020 © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Word learning in a second language (L2) is a complex process, which is affected by learner-related (e.g., morphological awareness) and language-related (e.g., word semantic transparency) factors. Morphological awareness is learners’ sensitivity to the morphological structure of printed words, and semantic transparency is the degree to which wordinternal morphemes contribute to the whole words’ meanings. However, little is known regarding how these morpheme-related factors jointly function in L2 word learning. Thus, this study focuses on how learners’ morphological awareness and word semantic transparency affect word-meaning retention in L2 Chinese, particularly the extent to which semantic transparency shapes the contribution of learners’ morphological awareness. Thirty-four L2 Chinese learners from an American university participated in this study. All the participants received a 40-min learning session and five paper–pencil measures. The main findings showed that (1) L2 learners’ morphological awareness contributed to their wordmeaning retention beyond L2 linguistic knowledge; (2) L2 learners performed better when recalling semantically transparent words than opaque words after learning sessions; and more importantly (3) learners with higher morphological awareness performed better than those with lower morphological awareness when recalling semantically transparent words, but the learners in both groups had similar performances when recalling opaque words. Keywords Morphological awareness · Semantic transparency · Word learning · L2 chinese
Introduction For second language (L2) learners, word knowledge has been found to be a strong contributor of the development of language proficiency (Nation 2013) and reading comprehension (August et al. 2005), as well as a significant discriminating variable between more and less successful adult readers (Nassaji 2003). Learners’ word knowledge development (word learning) is a complex process, which entails establishing links among a graphic form, sound, and meaning of a word, embedding a word into sentential and discourse * Tianxu Chen [email protected]; [email protected] 1
College of International Education, Minzu University of China, 27 Zhongguancun South Ave, Beijing 100081, China
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Vol.:(0123456789)
Journal of Psycholinguistic Research
context, and applying a word to the real world (Zhang and Koda 2018). Word learning is also affected by many factors (e.g., Balota 1994; Ellis 1994), including learner-related variables (e.g., learners’ language proficiency and morphological awareness) and languagerelated variables (e.g., word frequency and semantic transparency). Little is known, however, regarding how different learner-related and language-related factors jointly function in L2 word learning (e.g., word recognition, memorization, and ret
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