Revista Argentina de Clínica Psicológica 2020, Vol. XXIX, N°2, 596-601
DOI: 10.24205/03276716.2020.283 596
P
SYCHOLOGICAL
R
EPRESENTATION AND
P
SYCHOLOGICAL
M
ECHANISM
OF
W
ORD
-M
AKING
E
RRORS OF
E
NGLISH
L
EARNERS
Li Wang
12*
Abstract
Word-making errors refer to the incorrect words coined by language learners based on the existing lexical library and rules. This type of errors represents the level of language learners in psychological representation of vocabulary knowledge. This paper probes deep into the psychological representation and psychological mechanism of word-making errors of English learners, aiming to identify the logical process of vocabulary learning. Both double-factor and one-factor experiments were carried out to verify the feasibility of second language (L2) vocabulary development model for psychological representation, explore the development of main categories of word-making errors, and find out the psychological mechanism of English learners in making word-making errors. The results show that the L2 vocabulary development model has three stages of development for psychological representation, and applies to English learners; the lexical library of the first language (L1) serves as an important medium for the cognition of English learners; the vocabulary acquisition of English learners improves with the language acquisition level in the multiple-to-one and multiple-to-multiple contexts. The research results provide the linguistic rules of English vocabulary learning, and clarify the psychological changes of English learners in vocabulary acquisition.
Key words: English Vocabulary, Psychological Representation, Word-Making Errors, Psychological Mechanism.
Received: 21-02-19 | Accepted: 11-07-19
INTRODUCTION
Along with the advancement of socialist modernization and the emergence of global village, the study of vocabulary acquisition has attracted much attention in foreign language teaching subjects and individual self-learning (Lackner & Goldstein, 1975). Vocabulary is to a second language is what bricks are to a building. Vocabulary is an important basic unit that forms phrases and sentences. Bauserman pointed out that lexical competence is an important cornerstone of language communication, and lexical problem is the core of language barrier. The degree of vocabulary accumulation and mastery directly affects learning and
1Heilongjiang University, Harbin 150080, China. 2Daqing
Normal University, Daqing 163712, China. E-Mail: 185020777@qq.com
improvement of a second language ability of the user (Bauserman, 1997). According to Lackner, for language learning except native language, vocabulary acquisition is the focus of language element teaching (Lackner & Tuller, 1977). Scholars point out from different aspects that the biggest barrier of second language learners (language learners other than their native language) is the difficulty of vocabulary acquisition. Even if they reach the middle and high level of language learning, the improper use of vocabulary still affects the communicative expression of foreign languages, obstructing the improvement of foreign language proficiency (Deakin, 1970). Throughout the research of vocabulary acquisition both at home and abroad, most of scholars still use the traditional research way of vocabulary acquisition. However, from the research content, few scholars focus on the evolution of vocabulary learning, word reserve and other aspects. There are few researches on
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L2 vocabulary development model (Kemp & Drummond, 2014). In fact, Woollams pointed out that that study of psychological representation and acquisition of vocabulary should be put into a unified learning mechanism, but scholars don’t put enough attention to the representation of vocabulary, which also exists in English as a second language (Woollams, 2105). As a psychological mechanism of learning, lexical representation must be processed through
learners’ language transformation and polishing
(Bauserman, 1997). From the perspective of English vocabulary acquisition, word-making error is a common mistake for language learners to process and polish vocabulary. Word-making errors often reflect the development level of
learners’ psychological knowledge
representation because of the existing lexical library of learners or the new bridge vocabulary created by the existing transformation rules (Fodor & Garrett, 1975). It is helpful for people to understand the process of vocabulary acquisition, discover and utilize the internal logic of vocabulary acquisition by unifying the mechanism of vocabulary psychological representation and vocabulary acquisition, which is of important reference significance for foreign language learning (Kumaravadivelu, 1988).
Many foreign language learners spend a lot of time and energy on language learning, but the effect is not obvious and there are always such problems as “unable to remember the meaning
of words”, “unable to distinguish the usage
between similar words”,“easy to forget words”, “difficulty in using advanced words” (Wierzbicka, 1987). In order to help English learners to effectively remember and use vocabulary, and to solve the problems generally existing in English
learners’ language learning, this study examines
the feasibility and applicability of L2 vocabulary psychological representation model to English learners by means of experimental research. Besides, the study analyzes the data of word-making errors of learners, and explores the development of the main vocabulary knowledge related to the errors, so as to find out the psychological mechanism of word-making errors of non-English learners, in order to help learners to strengthen and expand their psychological vocabulary network by using various psychological connections of foreign language vocabulary, and promote learners’ learning of foreign language vocabulary.
L2 VOCABULARY DEVELOPMENT MODEL FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF PSYCHOLOGICAL LANGUAGE
The syntax, language meaning, form and word elements are regarded as psychological representation of L1 lexical library, which can be divided into two layers: word level and entry word, as shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1
.
Internal structure of lexical
representation
Figure 2
.
Stage I: Lexical Representation and
L2 Lexical Processing
The word level mainly includes language elements and formal vocabulary information, but the entry word includes language meaning and syntax information. According to research data on psychology (Amp & Libo, 2008), L1 lexical representation structure, word order information and word catalogue information are very consistent. When a learner’s psychological entry is used, all information about the pronunciation and semantics of the word is automatically activated and the word is extracted. Burton pointed out that compared
PSYCHOLOGICAL REPRESENTATION AND PSYCHOLOGICAL MECHANISM OF WORD-MAKING ERRORS OF ENGLISH LEARNERS 598
with practice L1, L2 learners generally have two problems: The first is that the quantity and quality of sentence intervention are not enough; the second is that learners influence L2 learning because the acquired L1 semantics and conceptual systems affect L2 learning, that is, existing framework systems and language systems sometimes impede and hinder the completion of new L2 words and language meaning features (Burton & Hinton, 2010). Therefore, L1 and L2 lexical representations are fundamentally different from the existence of development patterns. Burton also proposed three stages of L2 lexical representation development. The first stage is the form stage of vocabulary development. Upon completion of the L1 vocabulary learning process, the learning of the language vocabulary is realized with the construction of the meaning, as shown in Figure 2. At this stage, foreign language learners mainly learn the formal features of L2 vocabulary, and the deep word meaning is mainly based on the content of L1 lexical library.
The second stage, also known as L1 heading bridge stage, belongs to the middle level of vocabulary development. At this stage, the L2 language ability and experience of language practitioners are enhanced, and the corresponding word, semantics and syntax representation of L1 and L2 word realize the function of conversion, as shown in Figure 3. However, since the entry space of the L2 entry word is occupied by the L1 entry and the conceptual meaning of the word is mainly provided by L1, the association between the L2 vocabulary and the conceptual meaning of the frame is interrupted.
Figure 3
.
Stage II: Lexical Representation
and L2 Lexical Processing
Figure 4
.
L2 Vocabulary Development - From
Form to Integration
The third development stage is the high level of vocabulary development, namely, the
“unification” stage of L2 vocabulary
development, as shown in Figure 4. Foreign language learners can combine the semantics, syntax and morpheme features of L2 words to create new phrases and new sentence patterns. At this stage, both L1 and L2 words are very similar in word conversion and processing, and the extraction of L2 lexical library is more automated.
LOGICAL STUDY ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF PSYCHOLOGICAL REPRESENTATION IN ENGLISH VOCABULARY
Figure 5
.
Comparison of two type semantic
relevance to translation at different
acquisition levels
The L2 lexical representation growth path proposed by Wierzbicka includes three stages:
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form stage, medium stage and integration stage (Wierzbicka, 2016). In order to investigate its feasibility and applicability in English vocabulary acquisition, we will use experimental design to verify the L2 lexical representation development model hypothesis. The double-factor hybrid design (3*2), referring to the experimental design of English proficiency of 3 subjects and 2 word pairs is used to test. The variable is the language vocabulary level of subjects, which is divided into primary level, medium level, and advanced level. The variable in the subjects is word pairs, which are divided into two levels: homodromous translation and the incongruous translation. The dependent variable is the degree of semantic relevance of the subjects to the word. The subjects in the experiment are 120 English learners from a college of foreign languages of a university in Guangdong. 40 of them study English for 10 months, 40 study English for 15 months, and 40 study English for 20 months. They are divided into primary group, medium group and advanced group. They will be randomly asked to read, translate, create vocabulary, and distinguish the degree of semantic relevance and English-Chinese translation or Chinese-English translation. The experimental results are shown in Figure 5:
The experimental data show that L1 plays a significant mediating role in the cognition of foreign language vocabulary learners. In addition, with the extension of the learning cycle, the mediating effect of L1 on word translation also changes, which is represented by the dynamic changes of the mediating effect at the primary, medium and advanced level.
PSYCHOLOGICAL MECHANISM OF WORD-MAKING ERRORS
Foreign language learners are influenced not only by the lexical library of L1 and L2, but also by the mechanism of psychological error. The word-making errors in this study refer to the creation of non-existent words based on the existing language knowledge of foreign language learners. The experiment is also carried out in 120 English learners of a college of foreign languages of a university in Guangdong. Non-inspection items such as mirror errors, errors due to similar form or pronunciation, or spelling errors are excluded. 58 students participate in the double-factor mixing experiment. Finally, the experimental data are shown in Figure 6,
according to the three categories of common word-making errors, such as synonymy or substitution, the mistake of a word as morpheme, and irregular words in English.
Figure 6
.
Comparison of the Achievements
of Three Corresponding Types of Vocabulary
The above experimental results show that multiple-to-one and multiple-to-multiple types have a negative impact on English language
learners’ learning lexical elements and the
logical process of understanding semantics. When English learners are faced with more than two English morphemes corresponding to one or more Chinese words, a barrier will appear in distinguishing the meanings of English words. Of course, the cognitive development of English morpheme implication in multiple-to-multiple contexts is more difficult than that in multiple-to-one contexts, because multiple-to-multiple makes it more difficult for foreign language learners to extract lexical library. However, when students reach a certain level of acquisition, namely, primary level, medium level and advanced level, their English vocabulary learning ability under the two corresponding types is also enhanced. In addition, the experiment shows that at the primary level and the advanced level, the discrimination of multiple-to-one and multiple-to-multiple test scores is not obvious, but the difference between the two types of scores at the medium level is relatively large.
Figure 7 shows that the main influence of English proficiency factors is very significant. Tthe English vocabulary boundary test scores of
PSYCHOLOGICAL REPRESENTATION AND PSYCHOLOGICAL MECHANISM OF WORD-MAKING ERRORS OF ENGLISH LEARNERS 600
English students are significantly improved from the primary level to the medium level, but there is no significant change in the test scores from the medium level to the advanced level. In a word, the experiment shows that the boundary consciousness of English beginners is weak, and they can only recognize some words and some semantics. The primary level to the medium level is the rapid development stage of lexical boundary cognition, but the blank and shortage of lexical boundary knowledge tend to lead to the psychological mechanism of word-making errors.
Figure 7
.
Change of Performance in Junior,
Middle and Advanced Horizontal Boundary
Tests
Figure 8
.
Composition of Second Language
Vocabulary Teaching
According to all the above data, the psychological representation of L1 and L2 vocabulary language and the psychological mechanism of word-making errors indicate that effective language learning requires the foreign
language learners to pay attention to the language form and its semantic meaning at the time of input, to internalize the input knowledge of vocabulary and language. This tells that a foreign language teacher should guide the students to pay attention to the lexical features of language, carry out comprehension conversion based on the existing lexical library of L1, and extract effective lexical information. A foreign language teacher can cultivate students’ associative thinking, guide students to interpret new words with high-frequency words, strengthen phonological teaching of words, and create context to enhance the learning of languages. In addition, with the development of social information technology, a foreign language teacher should conduct vocabulary teaching with the help of multimedia, while providing visual, auditory and textual information. In teaching students, a foreign language teacher should also pay attention to the psychological mechanism and rules of vocabulary learning and reduce the psychological burden on students when learning foreign languages. Most importantly, a foreign language teacher should reasonably arrange the time for repeated memorizing words in combination with forgetting curve, so that students can effectively use short-term memory and long-term memory to enhance their memory of words and improve the stock of vocabulary. Foreign language teaching methods can refer to the teaching ideas of Figure 8.
CONCLUSIONS
This study adopts experiment to verify the feasibility of Burton’s L2 vocabulary psychological representation development model and its applicability to English vocabulary learning. According to the experimental data of the subjects’ English learning ability and word-making errors, this study discusses the vocabulary knowledge development level reflected by errors when English learners create different kinds of vocabulary knowledge. This study analyzes the psychological mechanism of word-making errors in English learners whose native language is not English. The conclusions of this study are as follows:
(1) The development of psychological representation of English vocabulary mainly goes through three stages: form stage, medium stage and integration stage, and the
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development model is universally applicable and feasible for foreign language learners.
(2) L1 lexical library plays an important mediating role in the cognition of foreign language learners. In addition, with the extension of the learning cycle, the mediating effect of L1 on word translation also changes, which is represented by the dynamic changes of the mediating effect at the primary, medium and advanced level.
(3) When foreign language learners reach a certain level of acquisition, namely, primary level, medium level and advanced level, their English vocabulary learning ability under the two corresponding types is also enhanced. In addition, at the primary level and the advanced level, the discrimination of multiple-to-one and multiple-to-multiple test scores is not obvious, but the difference between the two types of scores at the medium level is relatively large. The primary level to the medium level is the rapid development stage of lexical boundary cognition, but the blank and shortage of lexical boundary knowledge tend to lead to the psychological mechanism of word-making errors.
Acknowledgement
Heilongjiang province philosophy and social science planning research project “discourse function research of evidentiality in English academic papers” (18EDE489)
A key subject of Heilongjiang Province Education science Planning “Research on ecological imbalance in middle school English classes under the background of education informatization (JJB1319001)”.
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