The effects of synonymy on second-language vocabulary learning

By Stuart Webb. Reading in a Foreign Language, 2007

87 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This article examines the effects of synonymy (i.e., learning words with and without high-frequency synonyms that were known to the learners) on word knowledge in a study of 84 Japanese students learning English. It employed 10 tests measuring 5 aspects of word knowledge (orthography, paradigmatic association, syntagmatic association, meaning and form, and grammatical functions) to assess learning. Both receptive and productive tests were used to measure each aspect of vocabulary knowledge. The participants encountered target words in 2 learning conditions: glossed sentences and word pairs. The results showed that the learners had significantly higher scores for the words that had known synonyms on productive knowledge as measured using syntagmatic association and paradigmatic association tests and on receptive knowledge as measured using an orthography test. The findings indicate that learning synonyms for known words may be easier than learning words that do not have known synonyms.

Subfields: Artificial Intelligence, Developmental and Educational Psychology, Language and Linguistics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/7e0be1400cfdd206a402104173299b8111a0b94f

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Artificial Intelligence

1. A. Chang
2. Stuart Webb
3. A. Pellicer‐Sánchez
4. N. Schmitt
5. E. Peters
6. Irina Elgort
7. Yanxue Feng
8. B. Laufer

In Developmental and Educational Psychology

1. A. Chang
2. Stuart Webb
3. E. Peters
4. N. Schmitt
5. A. Pellicer‐Sánchez
6. Yanxue Feng
7. Irina Elgort
8. B. Laufer

In Language and Linguistics

1. A. Chang
2. Stuart Webb
3. N. Schmitt
4. E. Peters
5. A. Pellicer‐Sánchez
6. Irina Elgort
7. Yanxue Feng
8. B. Laufer

Citations in the corpus

• Second Language Vocabulary Growth (2012, background): “Another reason to begin with explicit learning of form and meaning is that knowledge of other aspects of knowledge may be gained if there is overlap between L1 and L2 vocabulary knowledge (Webb, 2007, 2009).”
• The effects of context on incidental vocabulary learning (2008, methodology): “The effects of repetition on vocabulary knowledge were discussed in Webb (2007a).”
• The Effects of Receptive and Productive Learning of Word Pairs on Vocabulary Knowledge (2009, background): “This result supports the findings of Webb (2007c) indicating that intermediate L2 learners may use L1 knowledge of the target words and/or L2 knowledge of their synonyms to gain knowledge of syntax, grammar, and association.”