Do word associations assess word knowledge? A comparison of L1 and L2, child and adult word associations

2010 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-204 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marjolein Cremer ◽  
Daphne Dingshoff ◽  
Meike de Beer ◽  
Rob Schoonen
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Development ◽  
Assessment Tool ◽  
Word Association ◽  
Word Knowledge ◽  
Word Associations ◽  
Bilingual Speakers ◽  
Association Behavior ◽  
Log Linear ◽  
L1 And L2 ◽  
Free Word

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.

scholarly journals Students’ Word Associations with Different Terms Related to the Wadden Sea: Does the Place of Residence (Coast or Inland) Have an Influence?

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 284
Author(s):  
Till Schmäing ◽  
Norbert Grotjohann
Keyword(s):  
Wadden Sea ◽  
Word Association ◽  
Place Of Residence ◽  
Word Associations ◽  
Quantitative Content ◽  
Visitation Frequency ◽  
Written Form ◽  
Free Word ◽  
Different Levels ◽  
Out Of School

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.

RESEARCHING VOCABULARY THROUGH A WORD KNOWLEDGE FRAMEWORK

1997 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Norbert Schmitt ◽  
Paul Meara
Keyword(s):  
Word Association ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Word Knowledge ◽  
Vocabulary Size ◽  
Word Associations ◽  
Knowledge Change ◽  
Japanese Students ◽  
Knowledge Framework ◽  
Percentage Points ◽  
Academic Year

This study examines how two types of word knowledge, word associations and grammatical suffix knowledge, change over time both receptively and productively. Ninety-five secondary and postsecondary Japanese students were tested on three word associations and inflectional and derivational suffixes for each of 20 verbs, once near the beginning of their academic year and once near the end. The results showed their average vocabulary gain was 330 words. The students showed rather poor knowledge of the allowable suffixes for the verbs, especially the derivative suffixes. Likewise, the subjects did not show very good mastery of the verbs' word associations. Even for verbs rated as known, the students as a group were able to produce only about 50% of the word associations possible on the test as judged by native speaker norms. Word association knowledge and suffix knowledge were shown to correlate with each other and with total vocabulary size. The subjects overall had from 19 to 25 percentage points more receptive knowledge than productive knowledge.

Word Association: Capacity of Chronic Schizophrenics to Follow Formal Semantic, Syntactic, and Instructional Rules

1979 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 431-442 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roy B. Mefferd
Keyword(s):  
Word Association ◽  
Response Patterns ◽  
Word Associations ◽  
Hospital Employees ◽  
Similar Word ◽  
Chronic Schizophrenics ◽  
Qualitative Nature ◽  
Associative Structures ◽  
Affective Dimensions ◽  
Free Word

Free word associations with pressure to respond fast were compared for actively psychotic, but tranquil, chronic schizophrenics of two categories and closely matched hospital employees. The stimulus words were homonyms that were equated among other factors for availability of responses in the various response tendencies characterized as idiodynamic sets, e.g., to define or explain the stimulus, or to give a syntactic response. Comprehensive scoring schema included separate semantic-syntactic, grammatical and affective dimensions. Qualitatively, the controls and schizophrenics had similar aberrant or faulting behavior, but the schizophrenics gave significantly more of three kinds of faults: (1) failure to “play the game or follow the instructions,” viz., no response, repeating the stimulus, or giving a multi-word; (2) mishearing the stimulus, i.e., a distant response to the intended stimulus but that is closely related to a phonetically similar word, and (3) distant experiential relationships, e.g., Pan-Knife. Expressed on the basis of percentage of scorable responses, the qualitative nature of the non-faulted response patterns of the controls and of either paranoid or simple chronic schizophrenics were indistinguishable. Schizophrenics had intact associative structures that appeared to be organized and used in the same way as with the controls.

Untangling word webs: graph theory and the notion of density in second language word association networks

2002 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 303-324 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clarissa Wilks ◽  
Paul Meara
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Graph Theory ◽  
Word Association ◽  
First Language ◽  
Theoretical Research ◽  
Formal Approach ◽  
Word Associations ◽  
Lexical Density ◽  
Association Data ◽  
L1 And L2

This article examines the implications of the metaphor of the ‘vocabulary network’. It takes a formal approach to the exploration of this metaphor by applying the principles of Graph Theory to word association data in order to compare the relative densities of first language (L1) and second language (L2) lexical networks. Earlier graph theoretical research into L2 word associations is reviewed and methodological flaws in this work discussed. It describes the development of a new elicitation tool which is able to provide a means of quantifying lexical density levels. Levels of linkage in the L1 and L2 lexical networks are shown to be higher than previously assumed in the literature. It is argued that it will be helpful to develop a more complex interpretation of the notion of lexical density.

scholarly journals A Study on the Way in which Words Are Organized in Iranian EFL Learners’ Mental Lexicon

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (6) ◽  
pp. 80
Author(s):  
Sedigheh Sharifi ◽  
Masoud Khalili Sabet ◽  
Abdorreza Tahriri
Keyword(s):  
Word Association ◽  
Vocabulary Learning ◽  
Mental Lexicon ◽  
Association Test ◽  
Word Knowledge ◽  
Chi Square ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Word Association Test ◽  
L1 And L2 ◽  
The Way

Vocabulary learning in both L1 and L2 is considered important to master a language. Individuals need to learn the words in order to express ideas and to communicate. As a result, research into word knowledge is important as it provides useful information considering the way in which words are learned and organized in individuals’ mind; however different studies have been conducted in this regard, there is a long way to fully understand individuals’ mental lexicon. So, word association tests are used to examine the word knowledge, to study vocabulary learning process, and how it occurs in the language learners’ mind. Similarly, the aim of this paper is to investigate the way in which words are stored and organized in Iranian EFL learners’ mental lexicon through a word association test. To this end, a word association test was designed including eight prompt words from different word classes and was administered to 50 Iranian EFL learners. They were randomly selected and included 22 males and 28 females from Razi University and an institute in Kermanshah, Iran. After administering the test, to analyze the data, learners’ responses were classified and the frequency of each classification of word association was calculated and chi-square tests were run to compare responses. Results reveal that the participants displayed different patterns in their responses as syntagmatic and paradigmatic classification. Most of them made more syntagmatic responses than paradigmatic ones. As a result, it can be concluded that more participants make mental links with syntagmatic compared to others who make links with paradigmatic and there are significant differences between male and female learners in the use of syntagmatic and paradigmatic responses; on the other hand, it appears that there is no significant differences in learners’ word association regarding age. This study has useful implications for both EFL teachers and learners by helping them understand and improve the lexical acquisition process.

scholarly journals Word Co-occurrence in Child-directed Speech Predicts Children's Free Word Associations

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdellah Fourtassi
Keyword(s):  
Computational Linguistics ◽  
Conceptual Development ◽  
Strong Predictor ◽  
Free Association ◽  
Semantic Model ◽  
Word Associations ◽  
Association Task ◽  
Associative Behavior ◽  
Free Word ◽  
Large Corpus

The free association task has been very influential both in cognitive science and in computational linguistics. However, little research has been done to study how free associations develop in childhood. The current work focuses on the developmental hypothesis according to which free word associations emerge by mirroring the co-occurrence distribution of children's linguistic environment. I trained a distributional semantic model on a large corpus of child language and I tested if it could predict children's responses. The results largely supported the hypothesis: Co-occurrence-based similarity was a strong predictor of children's associative behavior even controlling for other possible predictors such as phonological similarity, word frequency, and word length. I discuss the findings in the light of theories of conceptual development.

The ‘promise’ of three methods of word association analysis to L2 lexical research

2012 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alla Zareva ◽  
Brent Wolter
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Assessment Tool ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Word Association ◽  
First Language ◽  
Lexical Organization ◽  
The Third ◽  
Size Groups ◽  
L1 And L2 ◽  
Associative Organization

The present study is an attempt to empirically test and compare the results of three methods of word association (WA) analysis. Two of the methods – namely, associative commonality and nativelikeness, and lexico-syntactic patterns of associative organization – have been traditionally used in both first language (L1) and second language (L2) associative research and the third one – collocational aspect of associative responses – is a more recent perspective on associative connections. The central assumption behind the study is that each method captures a different aspect of language users’ lexical organization and, in that, their findings may paint a different picture of how the L1 and L2 lexicons compare as proficiency increases. At the same time, the sensitivity of each method to reflect differences related to proficiency may also point to their potential as a research and assessment tool. Three equal size groups of participants ( N = 180) at different proficiency levels – native speakers (NSs), second language (L2) advanced and intermediate learners of English – completed a familiarity and a WA test in writing. The tests contained 36 items equated for lexical class (nouns, verbs, and adjectives) and frequency of occurrence (high, mid, and low). The participants’ WAs generated to familiar vocabulary were analysed in three different ways, following the methods of analysis practiced by each of the three traditions under investigation. In the main, the results showed that examining the lexico-syntactic patterns of associative organization as well as the collocational aspect of associative links are two more ‘promising’ ways of looking at WAs than examining them with respect to their nativelike associative commonality.

scholarly journals COMPLEX STRUCTURES AND SEMANTICS IN FREE WORD ASSOCIATION

2012 ◽  
Vol 15 (03n04) ◽  
pp. 1250054 ◽  
Author(s):  
PIETRO GRAVINO ◽  
VITO D. P. SERVEDIO ◽  
ALAIN BARRAT ◽  
VITTORIO LORETO
Keyword(s):  
Human Brain ◽  
Word Association ◽  
Semantic Network ◽  
Free Association ◽  
Small World ◽  
South Florida ◽  
Characteristic Scale ◽  
Property A ◽  
Word Associations ◽  
Free Word

We investigate the directed and weighted complex network of free word associations in which players write a word in response to another word given as input. We analyze in details two large datasets resulting from two very different experiments: On the one hand the massive multiplayer web-based Word Association Game known as Human Brain Cloud, and on the other hand the South Florida Free Association Norms experiment. In both cases, the networks of associations exhibit quite robust properties like the small world property, a slight assortativity and a strong asymmetry between in-degree and out-degree distributions. A particularly interesting result concerns the existence of a characteristic scale for the word association process, arguably related to specific conceptual contexts for each word. After mapping, the Human Brain Cloud network onto the WordNet semantics network, we point out the basic cognitive mechanisms underlying word associations when they are represented as paths in an underlying semantic network. We derive in particular an expression describing the growth of the HBC graph and we highlight the existence of a characteristic scale for the word association process.

scholarly journals Habits and rabbits

2006 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 121-145 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tess Fitzpatrick
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Word Association ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
New Method ◽  
Word Associations ◽  
Linguistic Research ◽  
Association Response ◽  
Two Factors ◽  
L1 And L2 ◽  
Insight Into

Word associations have traditionally been used in linguistic research as a means of accessing information about the organisation of the mental lexicon. A number of important studies have revealed differences in word association behaviour in the L1 and the L2, but have failed to find consistent behaviour patterns. The study reported here suggests that this failure might be due to two factors: the choice of stimulus words and the categorisation of responses, which impose artificial constraints on both association behaviour and the exploration of response types. In order to move the investigation of L2 word associations forward, this study compares native speaker responses to a specific set of stimuli with those of advanced non-native speakers. The types of association response made by each group of subjects are investigated by means of a retrospective interview, and patterns in response types are mapped. This results in a new method of categorising word association responses, and provides more precise insight into the differences between L1 and L2 association patterns.

Measuring Word Learning Ability in Sequential Bilingual Children

2010 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pui Fong Kan
Keyword(s):  
Word Learning ◽  
Learning Ability ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Word Knowledge ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Learning Skills ◽  
Word Forms ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Novel Word Learning ◽  
L1 And L2

Abstract The purpose of this article is to look at the word learning skills in sequential bilingual children—children who learn two languages (L1 and L2) at different times in their childhood. Learning a new word is a process of learning a word form and relating this form to a concept. For bilingual children, each concept might need to map onto two word forms (in L1 and in L2). In case studies, I present 3 typically developing Hmong-English bilingual preschoolers' word learning skills in Hmong (L1) and in English (L2) during an 8-week period (4 weeks for each language). The results showed gains in novel-word knowledge in L1 and in L2 when the amount of input is equal for both languages. The individual differences in novel word learning are discussed.

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