Effects Of L2 Proficiency Level And Word Class On Chinese EFL Learners' L2 Mental Lexicon Semantic Relations

As an independent and a hot issue in the field of psycholinguistics,mental lexicon study has witnessed many important theories and findings about both L1 and L2 mental lexicon.Meanwhile,many scholars both at home and abroad have carried out the studies on the nature,organization and developmental pattern of mental lexicon.More and more studies have been dedicated to L1 mental lexicon and some scholars in China have carried out studies to explore L2 mental lexicon.In these limited number of related studies,some attention was paid to the comparison among semantic relations of different word classes such as those of nouns,adjectives and verbs or the comparison among different subjects.This study attempts to use a word association test to investigate the effects of L2 proficiency level and word class on Chinese high school and college students' L2 mental lexicon semantic relations and then makes a comparison among them.So the following research questions are addressed:(1)What are the features of Chinese EFL learners' L2 mental lexicon semantic relations?(2)Do the different L2 proficiency levels of Chinese EFL learners affect their L2 mental lexicon semantic relations? If yes,what are the differences?(3)Do the different word classes affect Chinese EFL learners' L2 mental lexicon semantic relations? If yes,what are the differences?(4)Do the effects of word class on Chinese EFL learners' L2 mental lexicon semantic relations change with the development of L2 proficiency level? If yes,to what extent?The subjects of the study consisted of two groups: the lower and the higher language proficiency group.The former included 49 Grade One students in one high school and the latter were 35 English major sophomores in one college.The word association test was used to investigate the proportions of mental lexicon semantic relations.Also the sub-categories of the semantic relations were analyzed including synonyms,antonyms,hyponyms,semantic neighbors,semantic remote relatives and collocations.Besides,comparisons among sub-categories in both groups were also provided.In order to study the effects of word classes on Chinese EFL learners' L2 mental lexicon,several comparisons among six kinds of semantic relations triggered by adjectives,nouns and verbs were also discussed respectively with the consideration of different language proficiency levels.Hopefully,it may shed some light on the construction and representation of L2 mental lexicon.Based on a careful study,the major findings are summarized below.Firstly,the findings of the word association test show that among Chinese EFL learners' mental lexicon semantic relations,collocations take up the highest percentage,semantic remote relatives and semantic neighbors also take up very high proportions.The percentages of synonyms and antonyms are much similar,while the percentage of hyponyms is the least.Secondly,students in the group of high L2 proficiency level are significantly different from those in the group of low L2 proficiency level on semantic relations(p=.000<.05).With the development of L2 proficiency level,the collocations of semantic relations increase while the development of paradigmatic relations varies.The average hyponym,collocation and semantic remote relative of students' semantic relations in the group of high L2 proficiency level are significantly higher than the counterparts in the group of low L2 proficiency level(p<.05).Negative correlation exists between L2 proficiency level and semantic relations with correlation coefficient.263.Thirdly,there is a significant difference between word class and semantic relations with p<.05.Adjectives' and nouns' semantic relations are significantly more than verbs' semantic relations,but there is not a significant difference between adjectives' and nouns' semantic relations.Adjectives' and nouns' semantic relations of antonyms are significantly more than verbs' antonyms;adjectives' and nouns' semantic relations of semantic neighbors are significantly more than verbs' semantic neighbors;and nouns' semantic relations of hyponyms are significantly more than verbs' hyponyms.Verbs' semantic relations of collocations are significantly more than nouns' collocations.Negative correlation exists between word class and semantic relations with correlation coefficient.201.Thus,this study supports the view that Chinese EFL learners' mental lexicon semantic relations of different word classes differ a lot.Fourthly,the findings of the Chi-Square test between word classes and six semantic relations in two different L2 proficiency groups indicate that there are significant differences among verbs' synonyms,adjectives' hyponyms,nouns' hyponyms,nouns' semantic remote relatives,nouns' collocations and verbs' collocations in two different L2 proficiency groups.With the development of L2 proficiency level,nouns' semantic relations and verbs' semantic relations change significantly.Finally,some implications for English vocabulary teaching are proposed to build Chinese EFL learners' better-organized lexical networks,thus achieving efficient language use.