The effects of synonymy on second-language vocabulary learning

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dc.contributor.authorWebb, Stuart
dc.date.accessioned2020-05-22T02:04:57Z
dc.date.available2020-05-22T02:04:57Z
dc.date.issued2007-10
dc.description.abstractThis 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.
dc.identifier.doi10125/66814
dc.identifier.issn1539-0578
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10125/66814
dc.publisherUniversity of Hawaii National Foreign Language Resource Center
dc.publisherCenter for Language & Technology
dc.subjectincidental learning
dc.subjectsynonymy
dc.subjectvocabulary knowledge
dc.subjectword pairs
dc.subjectglossed sentences
dc.titleThe effects of synonymy on second-language vocabulary learning
dc.typeArticle
dc.type.dcmiText
local.rfl.topicLexis
prism.endingpage136
prism.number2
prism.startingpage120
prism.volume19

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