Revista Argentina de Clínica Psicológica 2020, Vol. XXIX, N°2, 288-294
DOI: 10.24205/03276716.2020.238 288
R
ECOGNITION AND
A
PPLICATION OF
M
ENTAL
L
EXICONS AMONG
L
EARNERS OF
E
NGLISH AS A
F
OREIGN
L
ANGUAGE
Wei Xue
Abstract
Many Chinese people are learning English as a foreign language (EFL), but only a few of them have achieved a good command of the language. This paper attempts to study the recognition and application of mental lexicons among individual EFL learners. The research data were collected through a questionnaire survey on high school students, college students, and graduate students in Hangzhou, China. Through statistical analysis, the author examined how EFL learners recognize semantic features and learn mental lexicons of English, and investigated how different groups of students recognize and classify English mental lexicons. The result show that high school students, college students, and graduate students have significant differences in classifying mental lexicons; with the growing English level, students have a new understanding of mental lexicons and their semantic organization, and can perform continuous simplification and induction; as the English level of an individual continues to improve, the semantic organization of English word meanings changes continuously in his/her brain, from an ambiguous concept to a detailed cognition. The research lays a solid foundation for similar studies on individual learning of English mental lexicons.
Key words: Mental Lexicon, Learning Method, Lexical Recognition, Multi-Dimensional Scale Analysis.
Received: 18-02-19 | Accepted: 02-08-19
INTRODUCTION
The English teaching in China mostly focuses on the pronunciation, form and meaning of words, but ignoring a systematic theory of vocabulary teaching and corresponding teaching strategies, which cannot help EFL learners to understand and learn vocabulary effectively (Łockiewicz & Jaskulska, 2015; Dai & Wang, 2013; Vitevitch, 2012). The learners learn vocabulary only by remembering its Chinese meaning, and do not have a correct view of language learning. Therefore, English learning is limited to memorizing a large number of vocabulary (Ramoo & Olson, 2012; Vaid, Choi, Chen et al., 2008). Also, the learners’ purpose of
studying English is to cope with various exams,
School of Foreign Studies, Xi’an University, Xi’an 710065, China.
E-Mail: [email protected]
so they excessively pursue the vocabulary learning (Acha & Carreiras, 2014). As a result, the EFL learners lack understanding of vocabulary meaning, have very limited cognition and understanding of mental lexicon, and waste a lot of energy and time in the process of learning English, thereby leading to a poor learning effect (Spalding & Gagné, 2014; Widmann & Morris, 2009).
In the field of language research, the research on vocabulary is far behind grammar (Borodkin, Kenett, Faust et al., 2016; Ansarin & Manesh, 2015). Due to the different semantic structures between Chinese and English, the Chinese EFL learners are prone to making mistakes in the use of English, and fail to form an effective mental lexicon network (Dąbrowska, 2014; El-Bialy, Gagné, & Spalding, 2013; MURPHY & D POST, 2009). Plus, the lack of a native language-like environment, and limited learning time also make it difficult for them to understand the
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vocabulary accurately. It is more important for learners to use the language rather than blindly learning the language (Mcqueen, Cutler, & Norris, 2006; Dotsenko & Leshchenko, 2013). Thus, the learners need to learn the meaning of vocabulary using the cognition ability, and also the rules of vocabulary generation and evolution, which is conductive to deepening their understanding of known vocabulary and comprehending its potential vocabulary.
In view of the above, this paper attempts to study the recognition and use of English mental lexicon for the EFL learners. For this, a questionnaire survey was conducted among high school students, college students, and graduate students in Hangzhou. Then, combined with relevant theoretical knowledge of psychology and linguistics, it analyses the recognition and classification of mental lexicons in the process of English learning, and obtain the different stages
of students’ cognition of mental lexicon.
MENTAL LEXICON FOR EFL LEARNERS
English mental verbs
The concept of mental verbs refers to an attitude towards an objective things or phenomena, such as intending, hoping, perceiving, and remembering etc. These verbs are the ones with certain purposes, representing a purposeful attitude to something that does not necessarily exist in reality. Wellman defined mental verbs from another angle. He believes that mental verbs are personal cognitive processes, e.g., thinking, guessing, remembering, knowing, and so on. Mental verbs
are one person’s view of the inner world, which
is irrelevant to right or wrong.
Foreign studies on the meaning of mental verbs have found that mental verbs can be divided into four major categories: input components such as exploration, inspection, recognition, observation, etc.; memory components such as comprehension, interpretation, learning, memory, etc.; nonconstructive processing components, such as description, comparison, selection, and decision; constructive processing components, mainly including estimation, guessing, thinking, and reasoning, etc. In subsequent research, English mental verbs are divided into two dimensions, namely the deterministic dimension and the information processing dimension. With the study deepening, the information processing
dimension is sub-divided into perceptual verbs, processing verbs, and memory verbs, while the deterministic dimension is sub-divided into verbs of uncertainty and verbs of certainty.
At present, there has been no uniform principles of classification for the mental verbs.
In most studies, it’s classified according their
respective research direction. This study through the combination of the mental verbs and the human cognition explores the English mental
verbs according to people’s complex thinking
pattern in the cognitive process. This, on one hand, can help to understand the characteristics of semantic expression in the brain of students during the learning of English mental lexicon, and on the other hand learn about the similarities and differences of students' cognitive thinking in different stages of English learning, providing great support for English teaching and EFL learners.
Enlightenment on the study of
psycholinguistics and English mental lexicon
Psycholinguistics is the study of the interrelation between linguistic factors and psychological aspects. People need to have potential abilities and knowledge while learning and using language, and process the language inside, which is invisible, and can only be judged by studying the behaviour of learners. There are three main experimental methods commonly used in psycholinguistics. The first is to distort the vocabulary meaning and design some interference options, requiring the subjects to make adjustment and judgment in a short time; the second is the use of online and real-time
ways to observe the time of the subject’s
language processing in precise time measurement methods; the third is to judge whether the subject's short-term memory still exists based on the results of language processing, which is generally performed by a recurrence test, allowing the subject to observe the material containing the new and old words in a short period of time, and repeat the observed material.
Mental lexicon is derived from psycholinguistics, which mainly refers to the long-term memory of vocabulary by the human brain. It is a complex system, and its learning and storage are complex psychological cognitive processes. Considering that it cannot be directly measured and studied, the scholars have proposed a lot of analogy methods. Knowledge
RECOGNITION AND APPLICATION OF MENTAL LEXICONS AMONG LEARNERS OF ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE 290
is stored in the brain in the form of psychological structural cognition. This psychological cognition is holistic, and people can infer the structure of the other half based on some information of the psychology; the represented information is to help people control the processing information, enhance the speed and accuracy of information processing, and effectively instil information into the brain.
For the EFL learners, the mental lexicons in the brain are invisible and intangible. Because of its complexity and particularity, the experimental methods of psycholinguistics are needed to study the implied rules and characteristics in the language. This shall provide valuable research ideas and models for the study of English mental lexicon.
Bloom's taxonomy of cognitive domain is one of our research bases. Its research model is shown in Figure 1. Based on the principles of teaching and psychology, this model has stood the test of time, and has a great influence on the cognitive classification as well as the testing, implementation, and evaluation of education.
Figure 1
.
Cognitive domain classification
Comprehension
Knowledge Analysis
Application Synthesis
SURVEY AND ANALYSIS FOR THE EFL
LEARNERS’ RECOGNITION AND APPLICATION OF
MENTAL LEXICON
Questionnaire setup and distribution
EFL learners have different levels of semantic organization for mental lexicon in the learning process. By investigating the semantic features of English in the learner's brain, it can help to understand the differences of learners in the recognition of mental lexicon, and further learn
about the use of mental lexicon in the process of English learning. In this study, the surveys on the recognition and classification of mental lexicon were conducted using the questionnaire method.
For the two surveys, 260 high school students, college students, and graduate students in Hangzhou were selected as the survey respondents. The 16 mental lexicons were used in the first questionnaire, as shown in Table 1. The questionnaires were randomly distributed to the respondents. After completion, 260 questionnaires were collected with a recovery rate of 100%, among which the questionnaires that were not completed within the specified time were regarded as invalid. Through screening, there were a total of 246 valid questionnaires, with an effective rate of 94.6%. The basic information of the respondents is shown in Figure 2. The results of the questionnaire were analysed using a multi-dimensional scale method to obtain the semantic organizational dimensions and spatial structure of mental lexicons in students' brains.
Table 1.
Content of psychological vocabulary
questionnaire
Number Terms Number Terms
1 explore 9 question
2 guess 10 think
3 know 11 understand
4 learn 12 observe
5 plan 13 memorize
6 choose 14 compare
7 decide 15 remember
8 reason 16 notice
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Table 2.
Classification of mental lexicon
High school group University group Graduate group
Type Frequency Ratio Type Proportion Ratio Type Frequency Ratio
2 1 1.28% 2 2 1.64% 2 1 2.17%
3 3 3.85% 3 12 9.84% 3 4 8.70%
4 13 16.67% 4 22 18.03% 4 16 34.78%
5 16 20.51% 5 25 20.49% 5 9 19.57%
6 13 16.67% 6 36 29.51% 6 8 17.39%
7 20 25.64% 7 19 15.57% 7 5 10.87%
8 4 5.13% 8 6 4.92% 8 3 6.52%
9 5 6.41%
10 3 3.85%
Research results on recognition and classification of mental lexicons
The survey results on the specific classification of mental lexicons by the respondents are shown in Table 2. For better analysis, the histogram was used to display the classification results of the high school group. It can be seen form the figure that among the 78 respondents, most students classified the mental lexicons into 3, 4, 5, and 6 categories, with a total proportion of 79.49%; the students in the two categories accounted for the least, with a proportion of only 1.28%, while those who classified them into 7 categories reached 25.64%.
Figure 3
.
Results of mental lexicon
classification in senior high school group
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
0.00 0.05 0.10 0.15 0.20 0.25 0.30
Pr
opor
ti
on
The classification results of mental lexicons in the university group are shown in Figure 4. It can be seen from the figure that the university group classified mental lexicons into 8 categories, 2 less than the high school group; the majority classified them into 5 or 6 categories, up to 50%, followed by categories 4 and 7 with more than 10%, and the minimum number of students only had 2 categories, accounting for only 1.64%. The
classification results of the graduate group are shown in Figure 5. It can be seen from the figure that most students of the graduate group classified the mental lexicons into the categories 4 or 5, reaching up to 54.35%, and the least number of students classified them into categories 2 or 8; the average number of categories was 4.
Figure 4
.
Classification results of mental
lexicon in University Group
2 3 4 5 6 7 8
0.00 0.05 0.10 0.15 0.20 0.25 0.30 0.35
Pr
opor
ti
on
Figure 5
.
Psychological classification results
of graduate students
2 3 4 5 6 7 8
0.00 0.05 0.10 0.15 0.20 0.25 0.30 0.35 0.40
Pr
opor
ti
RECOGNITION AND APPLICATION OF MENTAL LEXICONS AMONG LEARNERS OF ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE 292
On the whole, the three groups differed little in terms of the classification results, and the average number of categories was 5 or 6. Specifically, the majority of students in the high school group classified the mental lexicons into 7 categories, accounting for 25.64%; in the university group, it was 6 categories, reaching 29.51%; in the graduate group, it was 4 categories, accounting for 34.78%. This indicates that with the continuous improvement of English learning level, the students have had a new understanding of mental lexicons and the organization of semantics, and could continuously simplify and summarize the classification.
In order to understand the organizational dimensions and spatial structure in students' brains for the semantic recognition of mental lexicons, the multi-dimensional scale analysis in SPSS 17.0 was used to perform statistics and calculations on the results of the questionnaire, and the analysis was conducted on a two-dimensional plane through matrix transformation. The multi-dimensional analysis method uses graphics to explain the problem, and dissimilar data is represented by distance. Its advantage is that the distance between two points can be seen intuitively. The closer the distance, the greater the similarity between the two points.
Figure 6
.
Multidimensional scale of English
mental lexicon of senior high school
students
In view of the semantic space structure of English mental verbs in the brains of the high school group, the position of each word can be
intuitively seen through the multi-dimensional scale graphics, as shown in Figure 6. It can be seen from the figure that the semantic recognition spatial structure of mental lexicons for high school students contained 5 obvious word clusters, and there were also some other individual words being relatively loose and far from other words. This shows that at the stage of high school, the conceptual characteristics of these unclassified words are different in the
learners’ brains.
Figure 7
.
Multidimensional scale of English
psychological
vocabulary
for
undergraduates
Figure 8
.
Multidimensional scale of graduate
students' English mental lexicon
Figure 7 shows the multi-dimensional scale of mental verbs for university group. Compared to high school students, the distribution of words was relatively loose as a whole; there were only two obvious word clusters, and three were
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relatively compact in semantic space; in addition, 6 mental verbs were far away from other words. This indicates that at the undergraduate level, students' understanding of the word meaning in the brain is deeper, and the semantic organization and conceptual structure formed in their brains are different from other groups so that there are more ways to apply these words.
Figure 8 shows the multi-dimensional scale of English mental verbs for graduate students. It can be seen that the semantic space structure of English mental verbs was the most loose in the brains of graduate students; there were only two obvious word clusters, while the distance between other verbs was not very close, which is the difference between graduate students and other student groups. This shows that as the level of English learners improves, the semantic organization of word meanings in their brains is constantly changing, from the original vague concepts and centralized semantics to being able to distinguish the differences between their subtle concepts in detail.
CONCLUSIONS
This paper systematically explores the EFL learners' recognition and application of mental lexicons. For this, a combination of mathematical statistical analysis and multi-dimensional scale analysis was adopted, and a questionnaire survey was conducted to
statistically analyse the EFL learners’ recognition
of English semantic feature and the learning method of mental lexicons. The main conclusions are as follows:
(1) The high school student group classified the English mental vocabulary into 10 categories, while the college students and graduate students with relatively high English level classified them into 8 categories; the improvement of the English level has deepened the learners' understanding of mental lexicons, and improves the individual's use skills, which in turn promotes the individual's continuous simplification and induction of the classification of English mental lexicon concepts.
(2) At the stage of high school, the conceptual characteristics of these unclassified words in the learner's brain are different in their brains; the undergraduates has a deeper understanding of the meaning of words, and there will be more methods for the application of English mental
lexicons; the semantic structure of English mental verbs is the most loose in the brains of graduate students.
(3) Multi-dimensional scale analysis shows that with the continuous improvement of the individual's English level, the semantic organization of English word meanings in its brain also changes continuously, from the initially ambiguous concept to the state being able to identity the subtle difference between the concepts in detail. This study lays a solid foundation for further exploration of the recognition and use skills of individuals in learning English mental lexicons.
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