The Phon-orth-semanic Connections In The Construction Of Mental Lexicon:the Impact Of Phon-orth-semanic Connections Of Chinese On EFL Learners’ Vocabulary Acquisition

The phon-orth-semantic construction of the English mental lexicon is different from that of the Chinese mental lexicon. Chinese is ideographic, there is a close orth-semantic correlation but inadequate phonological memory in the acquisition of the Chinese characters, which leads to firm orth-semantic connections, and relatively weak orth-phonological connections in the construction of Chinese mental lexicon; while English is phonogramic, English letters have close phonologyâ†'orthographyâ†'semantic connections, so phonology takes up a critical position in the construction of English mental lexicon. The Chinese EFL students take the habitual pattern of L1vocabulary acquisition to L2vocabulary acquisition, which leads to insufficient attention to the construction of phon-orthographic and phon-semantic connections and results in the common unsatisfactory performance in oral English of Chinese EFL learners. The author claims that the general vocabulary acquisition modes of Chinese non-English major EFL students are against the features the phonologyâ†'orthographyâ†'semantic construction of English mental lexicon, which is a contributory factor in the unsatisfactory oral and listening performance of Chinese EFL learners. This paper tries to investigate the status quo of the Chinese non-English major college students’ vocabulary learning by empirical research from the angle of the phon-orth-semantic connections of the construction of mental lexicon, aiming at finding effective ways of improving the oral and listening English competence of the Chinese non-English major college students.This paper proposes the hypothesis that:the difference of phon-orth-semantic connections in the native mental lexicon of Chinese and English language results in a habitual pattern of L1vocabulary acquisition into L2vocabulary acquisition; And this backward vocabulary learning mode forged from the L1vocabulary acquisition pattern of Chinese EFL learners is an influential factor leading to a deficient performance in English speaking and listening. These hypotheses are proved via experiments. Firstly, an interview is carried out on93college EFL learners to summarize four most frequently applied modes in L2vocabulary acquisition. Mode1goes as a rote memorization of words, skipping the construction of phon-orthographic and phon-semantic connections; Mode2improves on the acquisition of pragmatic knowledge, still weak in phon-orthographic and phon-semantic constructions; Mode3follows the constructive feature of English mental lexicon, building up a balanced phon-orth-semantic connection; Mode4attributes to occasional vocabulary acquisition, thus it is not taken as quantitative research object in this paper. The questionnaire is designed according to the international acknowledged Likert scale. By analyzing the data collected by123questionnaires. The results reveal significant correlations between the vocabulary acquisition modes and the oral and listening ability of Chinese EFL students:More than half of the participants apply the habitual Chinese vocabulary acquisition pattern in English vocabulary learning; Mode1and mode2are in positive correlation with the deficient performance in English oral and listening; while Mode3is in negative correlation. Therefore, it is advisable for the Chinese EFL students to adopt the adequate acquisition mode which emphasizes phonological coding to construct balanced phon-orth-semantic connections so as to improve their oral and listening performance. This research focuses on the impact of phon-orth-semantic connections of Chinese on EFL learners’ vocabulary acquisition, which differs from any previous related studies in mental lexicon. It is an innovation in L2phon-orth-semantic research modes exploration, providing a completely new perspective in L2vocabulary acquisition research, which may enlighten theoretical construction of L2mental lexicon and L2vocabulary teaching.