The Perceptual Ratings Of English Words By Chinese EFL Learners

Perceptual ratings of words refer to the measures of the perceptual intensity of words from the dimensions of vision,hearing,smell,taste,and touch etc.The ratings can be employed to explore whether the perceptual experiences of words have an impact on words processing.Based on that,researchers at home and abroad have adopted different methods and norms to conduct research on multiple languages.However,up to now,the focus of related studies is mainly on first languages,and the studies about perceptual ratings in second languages are very limited.As a result,this study intends to take Chinese college students as the research subjects and establish a database of perceptual ratings of second language words based on the vocabulary syllabus of College English Test(Band Four)to explore the features of auditory ratings of second language words.To be specific,there are four research questions in this study:(1)Are there any similarities and differences in the auditory ratings of English words between English native speakers and Chinese EFL learners?(2)Are there any gender differences in the auditory ratings of English words among Chinese EFL learners?(3)How is the modality exclusivity of the auditory ratings made by Chinese EFL learners like?(4)What are the linguistic features of the words involved in the auditory ratings made by Chinese EFL learners?This study adopted paper-pencil method to conduct the auditory ratings for English words among 120 Chinese non-English majors.By comparing and analyzing the perceptual rating databases of L1 and L2,as well as the auditory ratings between male and female L2 speakers,this study found that:(1)There were no significant differences between the overall auditory ratings made by Chinese EFL learners and English native speakers;and there were no significant differences among different parts of speech.However,for English native speakers,the range of perception and the degree of distinction for the auditory ratings of English words were significantly greater than those of Chinese EFL learners.(2)There were no significant gender differences in the overall auditory ratings made by Chinese male and female EFL learners.However,for Chinese male EFL learners,the degree of distinction for the auditory ratings of part of English words was greater than that of Chinese female EFL learners.(3)In terms of the exclusivity of five dominant modalities,the exclusivity of auditory modality was the highest.In addition,the ratings of auditory modality were positively correlated with the ratings of all the other modalities.(4)As for the linguistic features,words with high auditory ratings were directly related to sound.The average word length of them was short and the frequency of use was high.The major findings of this study can not only provide a complete database of auditory ratings of second language words for research related to perceptual ratings of words,but also help foreign language teachers pay more attention to the similarities and differences in perceptual ratings of words between native speakers and L2 learners,and adopt individualized teaching methods for gender differences in second language teaching to improve students’ learning efficiency.