Abstract
This study explores word class influence upon L1 and L2 word association. The participants included 26 L1 English speakers and 28 advanced EFL learners who finished an English word association test that involved three types of stimuli: nouns, verbs and adjectives. Response words to the stimuli were classified into paradigmatic, syntagmatic, encyclopedic and form-based categories. Results show that: 1) L2 mental lexicon largely resembled that of L1 English speakers in that both were dominated by paradigmatic association, but L2 syntagmatic association was obviously weaker than that of L1 across the three word classes; 2) Verbs and adjectives demonstrated a greater potential to elicit syntagmatic responses than nouns in both L1 and L2 association; 3) Compared with verbs and adjectives, nouns were more paradigmatically challenging to L2 learners.
(Copyedited by Steve Samules & Ding Yanren)
About the authors
Dr. Li Xiaosa currently teaches at the Department of English in Nanjing University of Information, Science and Technology. Her research interests include L2 lexical acquisition and translation studies.
Dr. Wang Wenyu is currently an associate professor teaching college English at Nanjing University. Her research interests mainly include L2 writing and interpretation studies.
Acknowledgements
I am most grateful to Ms. Zhang Yao for her help with my data collection. I am also indebted to the anonymous CJAL reviewers for their comments and suggestions. This study was supported in part by a research grant from Jiangsu Provincial Education Bureau (2014SJD118).
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