Lexical Errors and Accuracy in Foreign Language Writing
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Lexical Errors and Accuracy in Foreign Language Writing
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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781847694164 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Channel View Publications |
| Publication date: | 07/18/2011 |
| Series: | Second Language Acquisition , #58 |
| Pages: | 264 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.80(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.60(d) |
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CHAPTER 1
Vocabulary Acquisition in the Second Language
The importance of vocabulary in general language acquisition and communication (first and second) cannot be denied (Clark, 1993; Dagut, 1977; Harley, 1995; Laufer, 1990b; Singleton, 1999, 2000; Smith & Locke, 1988; Yoshida, 1978). The process of L2 vocabulary acquisition begins as soon as the L2 is encountered and continues long after other aspects of the L2 have been mastered. Despite being such a central and durative phenomenon, there are still many aspects of the L2 vocabulary acquisition process that remain mysterious, as Schmitt (1998: 281) points out: '[t]he mechanics of vocabulary acquisition is one of the more intriguing puzzles in second language acquisition'. This chapter explores L2 vocabulary learning with a particular focus on young learners' vocabulary acquisition. Accounts of differences in L1 and L2 lexical development processes as well as the relationships between the L1 and L2 lexicons are also dealt with in this chapter.
There has been copious research in lexical development in L1 and L2, but the absence of an overarching psycholinguistic framework to interpret these studies results in a fragmentation of the field, with studies addressing, for example, vocabulary size, different dimensions of word knowledge, passive/active distinctions in respect of vocabulary knowledge, reception and comprehension, vocabulary instruction and vocabulary learning strategies. In 1988, Channell already noted this problem:
There are now theories of L2 vocabulary acquisition, a wide (and growing) range of teaching techniques available, and a greatly increased awareness on the part of most teachers (and learners) of the importance of vocabulary development. At the same time, understanding of the psychological aspects of L2 vocabulary acquisition and vocabulary use is still rather limited. (Channell, 1988: 83)
Hudson (1990) also recognized this general area of deficit.
To my knowledge, a systematic model of how meanings of words are acquired is absent from the field. Most writers on the subject assume L2 lexical development proceeds in the same way as in a first language (L1), without specifying what this is in formal terms. (Hudson, 1990: 222)
The situation has not changed much in the last decade, although research on L2 vocabulary learning has significantly increased. The most frequently brandished explanation of L2 vocabulary learning extends L1 research findings to the learning of vocabulary in an additional language, on the basis of a view that the L2 lexicon is operationally similar to the L1 lexicon and that L1 and L2 lexical acquisition and processing follow in at least comparable ways. Thus, the findings in respect to L1 lexical processing are also seen as relevant to L2 (Singleton, 1999: Chap. 3; Stoller & Grabe, 1995). The fact, however, that L2 learners have already started developing their L1 lexicon by the time L2 acquisition begins may imply some differences between L1 and L2 lexical development (Singleton, 1999: Chap. 2). We further deal with this issue later. Our focus to begin with is on the different theories that attempt to explain vocabulary acquisition.
Theories of Vocabulary Acquisition in the Second Language
There are a number of disparate stances regarding the nature of L2 vocabulary acquisition, but two main complementary approaches can be distinguished, each emphasising different aspects of the process. The first focuses on the development of vocabulary as a process in stages (cf. Ellis, 1997a: 133ff; Jiang, 2000; Schmitt, 1998). The second represents vocabulary acquisition as the development of associative networks (Meara, 1984, 1996).
Vocabulary acquisition as a process in stages
One possibility is that vocabulary develops in consecutive stages. Researchers have made attempts at discovering some systematicity in how vocabulary items are acquired, trying to isolate predictable stages of acquisition. Thus, Gleitman and Landau (1996: 1) claim that vocabulary learning is not just the result of a mapping procedure, but that there is a systematic process at work comparable to the highly structured innate principles that guide syntactic acquisition.
The study of vocabulary acquisition in this perspective can have a number of dimensions: (1) order of acquisition of different types of knowledge (morphological, syntactic, collocational, semantic, etc.) for each lexical item, (2) order of acquisition of word classes (noun, verb, adverb, adjective, etc.), (3) order of acquisition of particular lexical items and (4) developmental stages of lexical processing.
Concerning the first, Schmitt (1998) advocates the study of the acquisition of individual words diachronically. In his 1998 article, for example, he measured the developmental acquisition of four types of word knowledge: written form, associations, grammatical behaviour and meaning. The study was intended to find out whether there is any hierarchical relationship between these four aspects of word knowledge. None of the measures used yielded positive evidence of a developmental hierarchy of lexical competence components. Other studies that follow the same line have been equally unsuccessful in identifying the stages through which lexical acquisition might develop. However, the existence of some regular patterns of vocabulary development is generally acknowledged (cf. Curtis, 1987: 45; Palmberg, 1987; Schmitt & Meara, 1997; Viberg, 1996; Yoshida, 1978). Naturalistic observations of L1 lexical development support the idea that knowledge of a word is not a yes/no issue. New words and word aspects are acquired in an incremental way. Different aspects of word knowledge, for example morphological knowledge, collocations, appropriate use of lexical items in context or knowledge of polysemous words, seem to be incorporated to the lexical entry at different moments during the L2 acquisition process. Similarly, lexical items belonging to a different word class appear to undergo different rates of acquisition, with nouns being acquired first and verbs second (Ellis & Beaton, 1993; Laufer, 1990b, 1997b; Marsden & David, 2008; Myles, 2005; Singleton, 1999: 141-142).
Research on word class acquisition is not very copious, but some recent studies by Marsden and David (2008) and Myles (2005) have claimed that verb production increases as learners' L2 proficiency develops. Parallel to this increase in verb production, there is, in this view, a decrease in noun production. Low-proficiency learners' productions abound in nouns, but verbs are practically non-existent in such productions. The higher cognitive and linguistic demands made by verbs seem to result in their being acquired after nouns. The same argument applies to adjectives and adverbs, which also appear after nouns in learners' production. In particular reference to verbs, the argument runs as follows: verb acquisition implies not only the development of form-meaning connections but also the acquisition of syntactic constraints, morphological inflections and knowledge of the correspondences between verb and subject and verb complements. According to this view, the cognitive load involved in the acquisition of verbs is higher than that involved in the acquisition of nouns, which explains the former's later appearance.
As learners' L2 competence progresses, they start developing morphosyntactic features of verbs and other word classes. To illustrate this point, I would like to refer to some example essays taken from our data. It can be observed in the sample essays that as the learner's proficiency increases, his or her production of nouns proportionally decreases, but the proportion of verbs (including the modal can), adjectives and adverbs rises.
< learner 30, grade 4 > Monday 29th March Dear Mr. and Mrs. Edwards:
Hello! My name is XXX. I live in Logrofio and I from Spain. I'm nine. I am tall I've got brown eyes and big ears. My school's name is XXX. I live in a little city. I like football, tennis, basketball, and I like rice, potatoes, cucumbers, spaghettis, salad, ice-cream, chocolate cake, rice and bananas, My English teacher's name is Luis. My favourite subjet is gym. My favourite colour is yellow. I live in a big house with 2 bathrooms, four bedrooms and don't have hall and stairs. My class is small with 27 chairs and desks, a computer, a blackboard and 34 photos. My birthday is 18 of August Isaac
Nouns: hello, name, eyes, ears, city, school, football, tennis, basketball, rice, potatoes, cucumbers, spaghettis, salad, ice-cream, chocolate, cake, bananas, English teacher, subject, gym, colour, house, bathrooms, bedrooms, hall, stairs, class, chairs, desks, computer, photos, birthday, August: 33
Verbs: to be, live, like, have, do: 5
Adjectives: tall, brown, big, little, favourite, yellow, small: 7
Adverbs: 0
< learner 30, grade 6 >
Hello! My name is XXX. I live in Logroho, (La Rioja). I'm an only child. My fathers name are XXX and XXX I go to XXX school, in this place there are camps of basketball and football. Logrono is a small city. But there are lots of houses I like playing football with my friends and eating pizza but I don't like eating fish. I go to my villag. It's name is bezares. It very small village. It has a fronton, a church and a town hall. It has only ten habitants. This habitants live in a very old houses. I am tall and my hair is blond in summer and more dar in autum. My eyes are brown. My school has three places. A small house. In this house are the young pupils A big house. In this house go the big children. And the last place is a sports centre. In this place I can play football. Oh And I the Preseident of the United States I have got a bird and a dog in north pole and my father win the lotery It's incredible! I have got a clock only of gold. I have got two noses and three arms but one arm is very small. Cristian is a mosquits.
Nouns: name, child, fathers, place, camps, football, city, houses, friends, pizza, fish, village, church, town hall, habitants, hair, summer, eyes, school, pupils, children, president, bird, sports centre, dog, lottery, clock, gold, noses, arms, mosquits: 31.
Verbs: to be, live, go, like, play, eat, can, win, have got, do: 10
Adjectives: small, old, tall, blond, dark, brown, young, big, last, incredible, a lot of, only: 12
Adverbs: very, more: 2
Among the factors that affect the rate of acquisition of individual words, researchers distinguish, among others, pronounceability, length, morphological complexity, abstractness, polysemy, semantic opacity, synonymy, word frequency and salience (Ellis, 2004; Ellis & Beaton, 1993; Gonzalez Alvarez, 2004; Laufer, 1990b, 1997b; Singleton, 1999: 136-147). Apart from these phonological, orthographic and semantic characteristics of the L2 word, the degree to which the L2 and L1 words correspond will determine the 'learnability', that is the degree of ease of learning of L2 items. The more difficult a word is to learn, the more lexical errors can be expected to affect this word. In this vein, a long and formally complex word such as birthday gives rise to many lexical errors in our sample. Examples of the different renderings of the word are as follows:
• My bidray is in febroary.
• My birthey is the third of April.
• My birday is in September.
• My verdey is day 22 may.
• On friday is my birdthay.
Considering the degree of integration of the components of a lexical entry (semantic, syntactic, morphological and formal), Jiang (2000) proposes a theoretical model of tutored L2 lexical development that proceeds in stages. The model draws on the two basic differences between L1 and L2 vocabulary acquisition in a formal instructional setting. L2 vocabulary acquisition is constrained by (1) 'poverty of input in terms of both quantity and quality' and (2) 'presence of an established conceptual /semantic system with an L1 lexical system closely associated with it' (p. 49) (cf. Ellis, 1997a: 133ff).
According to Jiang (2000) L2 vocabulary acquisition proceeds in three phases. Firstly, learners focus on the formal specifications of a particular lexical item, and may even try to relate given L2 forms to their L1 translations. This is called the 'formal stage of lexical development'. Secondly, as experience with the language and its lexicon increases, learners add to L2 lexical entries the semantic and syntactic features of their L1 translation equivalents. This stage of vocabulary learning implies the matching of a new word form with pre-existing (L1) meanings (Ellis, 1997a: 134). Jiang describes this stage as the 'L1 lemma mediation stage'. Lexical transfer is common at this stage (cf. Ellis, 1997a: 134). Finally, when the learner has considerable L2 experience, semantic, syntactic and morphological information relating to the L2 word is incorporated into the corresponding lexical entry, and there is a movement away from any type of L1 mediation; this is the 'L2 integration stage'. The cognitive linguistic interpretation of lexical acquisition follows the same line (Robinson & Ellis, 2008; VanPatten et al., 2004).
The belief that L2 vocabulary acquisition can proceed as a set of hierarchically and systematically ordered stages implies systematicity and regularity in the lexical system. This is a step forward in research in the field of lexical development, since, traditionally, the lexicon has been deemed to be a chaotic mass of words arranged or listed without any predetermined order (cf. among many others, Duskova, 1969; Warren, 1982). Attempts such as the above at explaining the nature of lexical acquisition in L2 illustrate a major change in perspective as well as renewed research interest in the lexical component of language. A similar development can be observed in research in lexical errors, as will be presented below.
Vocabulary as associative networks
The second main trend within lexical studies suggests that vocabulary development occurs through associative networks (Meara, 1984, 1996). The belief that there is some systematic disposition of words in the lexicon led to the proposal of explanations that would account for lexical learning while taking full account of such systematicity (Dagut, 1977; Meara, 1996; Singleton, 1999). In this perspective, a new lexical item is incorporated into the L2 lexicon by establishing relations of various kinds to already existent words.
Meara (1984, 1996) asserts that learning vocabulary involves developing a set of associations, a semantico-formal network that reorganises itself with every new word learned; Beheydt (1987) and Robinson (1989, 1995) support this view, according to which new lexical information relates to old information by means of semantico-formal connections. Thus, lexical learning implies extending and strengthening those associations as the result of the incorporation of new words, or of further semantic and /or formal features of already known words.
At the core of these networks lies the notion of prototypicality (cf. Weinreich, 1974). A prototype is seen as the central or best example of a semantic category. In this view, vocabulary acquisition consists in broadening the semantic category by adding new shades of meaning or even new meanings to the prototype and by stretching the category with new lexical items that establish polysemy, synonymy, antonymy or metonymy relations among themselves (Cameron, 1994, 2001; Coady, 1995; Gass, 1988; Laufer, 1991a; Meara, 1996; Nagy & Herman, 1987; Nation, 1990; Schmitt, 1995; Schmitt & Meara, 1997; Wesche & Paribakht, 1996). Imagine, for example, that an EFL learner acquires the word dog with its denotative meaning of a 'domestic four-legged animal known for its loyalty to men'. This will constitute the prototype term, and as experience with the L2 increases, new meanings of the term such as figuratively or connotatively derived 'contemptible person', 'ugly person', 'any of various usually simple mechanical devices for holding, gripping or fastening that consist of a spike, bar or hook' or 'uncharacteristic or affected stylishness or dignity' (cf. www.merriam-webster.com) will also be incorporated. Moreover, the learners will also incorporate other words semantically and formally related to the prototype: morphological variations of the word (doggie, to dog, dogeared), synonyms (canine, hound), expressions with the word (put on the dog, lazy dog, going to the dogs, hot dog), words in opposite or contrastive relationships (cat, wolf) and words in hyponymous or superordinate relationships (mammal, animal, spaniel, German shepherd).
(Continues…)
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Copyright © 2011 María Pilar Agustín Llach.
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Table of Contents
Introduction: An OutlinePart I: Lexical Competence and Lexical Errors
Chapter 1. Vocabulary Acquisition in the Second Language
Chapter 2. Variables Affecting Lexical Production
Chapter 3. Vocabulary and Writing
Chapter 4. Lexical Errors in SLA
Part 2: Lexical Error Production in Young Spanish Learners’ Written Compositions
Chapter 5. Designing a Study to Explore Lexical Errors in Writing
Chapter 6. Lexical Error Production: Changes over Time
Chapter 7. Lexical Errors in Writing Quality
Chapter 8. Lexical Errors and Receptive Vocabulary Knowledge
Chapter 9. Some Concluding Remarks