scholarly journals The structure of developing semantic networks: Evidence from single and multiple nominal word associations in young monolingual and bilingual readers

2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (5) ◽  
pp. 1141-1169
Author(s):  
Tessa Spätgens ◽  
Rob Schoonen

ABSTRACTThe present study focuses on the effect of an important methodological choice in word association studies in children: the elicitation of single versus multiple responses. This choice has been shown to affect the numbers and types of associations adults produce, however, little is known about how it affects children’s word associations. A total of 11,725 associations to 80 nouns from 207 monolingual and bilingual minority children were classified according to a detailed coding system, and differences between the semantic characteristics of first, second, and third responses were examined. We show that in children as well, the multiple association task elicits more and qualitatively different responses, resulting in more diversified semantic networks surrounding the stimulus nouns. On the speaker level, reading comprehension scores were related differently to initial and later responses, suggesting a more complex measure of semantic knowledge emerges from the multiple word association task. No differences were found between monolingual and bilingual children’s associative preferences. We argue that the multiple association task produces more detailed data on language users’ semantic networks than the single association task, and suggest a number of ways in which this task could be employed in future research.

2014 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 118-125 ◽  
Author(s):  
JON CLENTON

The main purpose of the work described in this paper is to examine the extent to which the L2 developmental changes predicted by Kroll and Stewart's (1994) Revised Hierarchical Model (RHM) can be understood by word association response behaviour. The RHM attempts to account for the relative “strength of the links between words and concepts in each of the bilingual's languages” (Kroll, Van Hell, Tokowicz & Green, 2010, p. 373). It proposes that bilinguals with higher L2 proficiency tend to rely less on mediation, while less proficient L2 learners tend to rely on mediation and access L2 words by translating from L1 equivalents. In this paper, I present findings from a simple word association task. More proficient learners provided a greater proportion of collocational links, suggesting that they mediate less when compared to less proficient learners. The results provide tentative support for Kroll and Stewart's model.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arti Prihatini

This paper aimed at describing word association and its function at the constituent understanding on the language learning. Word association is a relation between a word with other words because of the semantic relationship. A word association test appears when there is a stimulus word and someone mentions a response word that comes to mind firstly based on the stimulus word. The response words show someone’s mental lexicon as a result of language acquisition and language learning. Word associations can be used in the process of understanding constituents (linguistic units) with word association tests, they are (1) words, (2) phrases, and (3) sentence patterns. In word constituent learning, word association tests are carried out by asking questions so that the result can show the semantic networks of words that are classified by word type. Phrase constituent learning is also held by asking questions, but response words are included before or after the stimulus word so that these words form a phrase. Meanwhile, sentence constituent learning is held by presenting words that are located as predicate and then asking questions that bring up the subject, object, complement, or additional information that accompany the predicate. With this method, students do not only learn constituents as units that have levels from small (words) to large ones (sentences), but also understand that constituents have a patterned and interconnected system.   Keywords: word associations, constituents, language learning


1972 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 624-626 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fred W. Ohnmacht ◽  
Angel M. Pacheco

114 Ss were administered a word-association task with stimuli presented to half the Ss in an aural mode, and to half in a visual mode. Responses were evaluated in terms of meaningfulness, quality, and structure. Qualitative and structural differences were negligible, whereas meaningfulness was affected by modality and stimulus characteristics. Interpretation of main effects was tempered by the presence of a significant interaction between modality and stimulus.


2000 ◽  
Vol 94 (4) ◽  
pp. 204-217 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shirley R. Wyver ◽  
Rosalyn Markham ◽  
Sonia Hlavacek

A comparison of the performance of children with congenital visual impairments and sighted children on two tasks involving inferences found some differences between the two groups when the information was visual, but not when it was nonvisual. The results of a word association task found that visual impairment affected some aspects of responses to both visual and nonvisual items, but had little effect on other aspects. Differences in semantic and lexical functioning seem to be related to the way the two groups acquire information.


1997 ◽  
Vol 84 (1) ◽  
pp. 171-175
Author(s):  
Pantaleon Fassbender

Relevance and scope of projective techniques for the purpose of organizational consulting are discussed. As an example, responses to a word-association task requiring each participant to visualize his company as an animal were compared with the rated appraisal for different values and qualifications as elements of corporate success. The sample consisted of 219 German managers (48% of them were CEOs or board members). Meaningful relationships between the choice of certain animals and value preferences were shown. Finally, widespread disapproval of projective techniques in management diagnosis and organizational consulting may be challenged.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 284
Author(s):  
Till Schmäing ◽  
Norbert Grotjohann

This paper presents students’ word associations with terms regarding the Wadden Sea. A continuous free word-association method was used in which the students from secondary schools (n = 3119, average age: 13.54 years) reported their associations with the stimulus words Wadden Sea, mudflat hiking tour, and tides in written form. Data were collected from students living close to the Wadden Sea and from students living inland. We performed a quantitative content analysis including the corresponding formation of categories. In addition, students’ school, out-of-school with the class, and private experiences the Wadden Sea ecosystem were recorded. The study shows that not only subject-related concepts should be considered at different levels, but non-subject-related aspects as well. The associations of the inland and non-inland students are statistically significantly different. The Wadden Sea and its biome were found to be completely unknown to some students. Students’ school, out-of-school with the class, and private experiences of the wetlands are also very mixed, regarding their Wadden Sea visitation frequency, and surprisingly cannot be directly derived from their place of residence. This research makes an important contribution towards the design of future biology didactic studies on the Wadden Sea.


2010 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-204 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marjolein Cremer ◽  
Daphne Dingshoff ◽  
Meike de Beer ◽  
Rob Schoonen

Differences in word associations between monolingual and bilingual speakers of Dutch can reflect differences in how well seemingly familiar words are known. In this (exploratory) study mono-and bilingual, child and adult free word associations were compared. Responses of children and of monolingual speakers were found to be more dispersed across response categories than responses of adults and of L2 speakers, respectively. Log linear analyses show that the distributional patterns of association responses differ among the groups. Age has the largest effect on association responses. Adults give more meaning-related responses than children. Child L1 speakers give more meaning-related responses than child L2 speakers. Form-based and ‘Other’ associations were mostly given by (L2) children. The different findings for mono- and bilingual children and for mono- and bilingual adults show the influence of bilingualism on the development of word associations. The prominent effect of age emphasizes the role of conceptual development in word association behavior, and makes free word association tasks less suitable as an assessment tool for word knowledge.


2013 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 663-673 ◽  
Author(s):  
Grażyna Sender ◽  
Agnieszka Korwin-Kossakowska ◽  
Adrianna Pawlik ◽  
Karima Galal Abdel Hameed ◽  
Jolanta Oprządek

Abstract Mastitis is one of the most important mammary gland diseases impacting lactating animals. Resistance to this disease could be improved by breeding. There are several selection methods for mastitis resistance. To improve the natural genetic resistance of cows in succeeding generations, current breeding programmes use somatic cell count and clinical mastitis cases as resistance traits. However, these methods of selection have met with limited success. This is partly due to the complex nature of the disease. The limited progress in improving udder health by conventional selection procedures requires applying information on molecular markers of mastitis susceptibility in marker-assisted selection schemes. Mastitis is under polygenic control, so there are many genes that control this trait in many loci. This review briefly describes genome-wide association studies which have been carried out to identify quantitative trait loci associated with mastitis resistance in dairy cattle worldwide. It also characterizes the candidate gene approach focus on identifying genes that are strong candidates for the mastitis resistance trait. In the conclusion of the paper we focus our attention on future research which should be conducted in the field of the resistance to mastitis.


1968 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-134 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leon H. Belcher ◽  
Joel T. Campbell

Two word-association lists of 50 words were each administered to 50 Negro college students. 41 words were taken from the Kent-Rosanoff list, 29 from the Palermo-Jenkins list, and 30 were words used in analogy items of the Scholastic Aptitude Test. Comparisons with previous normative studies showed generally similar results. The present study did result in slightly smaller proportions of matching from class primary responses to noun, pronoun, and adverb stimulus words and of opposite responses to “opposite-evoking stimuli.” A number of the responses indicated reading difficulty or misunderstanding of the word.


Genes ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
pp. 1181
Author(s):  
Alessandro Maglione ◽  
Miriam Zuccalà ◽  
Martina Tosi ◽  
Marinella Clerico ◽  
Simona Rolla

As a complex disease, Multiple Sclerosis (MS)’s etiology is determined by both genetic and environmental factors. In the last decade, the gut microbiome has emerged as an important environmental factor, but its interaction with host genetics is still unknown. In this review, we focus on these dual aspects of MS pathogenesis: we describe the current knowledge on genetic factors related to MS, based on genome-wide association studies, and then illustrate the interactions between the immune system, gut microbiome and central nervous system in MS, summarizing the evidence available from Experimental Autoimmune Encephalomyelitis mouse models and studies in patients. Finally, as the understanding of influence of host genetics on the gut microbiome composition in MS is in its infancy, we explore this issue based on the evidence currently available from other autoimmune diseases that share with MS the interplay of genetic with environmental factors (Inflammatory Bowel Disease, Rheumatoid Arthritis and Systemic Lupus Erythematosus), and discuss avenues for future research.


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