Intermediate Level Learners’ Vocabulary Guessing and Recognizing through Sound Symbolism

Hossein Sabouri ,Saeid Peimanfar ,M Zohrabi

doi:10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.3n.6p.42

Abstract

Research into vocabulary acquisition indicates that there are several contributors to word learning. However, the question of phonology’s place in word learning has been virtually ignored. Sound symbolism is the idea that the relationship between phonology and semantics is not always arbitrary and that for some words present in today’s languages there is correspondence between sound and meaning. The impetus behind the present study was to investigate whether sound symbolism as a possible route leads to increased word learning. The study compared the guesses that 90 intermediate level Turkish learners of EFL made regarding the potential meanings of sound symbolic and non-sound symbolic words both in the presence and absence of context. Independent sample t-tests were calculated to analyze the participants’ guesses of the word meaning. The results revealed that the participants were able to guess the meanings of sound symbolic words significantly better than the meanings of non-sound symbolic words. The analysis of independent sample t-test substantiated that both sound symbolism as a word level property and context are significantly effective for word learning. As the results revealed, when sound symbolic words were embedded in their relevant written context, the participants’ guesses were the highest. That is, the interactive efficacy of sound symbolism plus context was significantly higher than the efficacy of either of them. Hence, EFL teacher may raise the learners’ awareness to sound symbolism as a potential means in restricting and interpreting the meaning of unknown words.

Highlights

It is common sense that without words there can be no proper communication, basic (Laufer, 1997)
Neither context nor sound symbolism was included in the given vocabulary which resulted in the mean score of six for the control group
The forth condition involved the combination of both variables, i.e. sound symbolism and context in the word stimuli which had the highest result for the participants

Summary

Introduction

It is common sense that without words there can be no proper communication, basic (Laufer, 1997). Vocabulary is a core component of language proficiency and provides much of the basis for how well learners speak, listen, read and write (Nation, 2002). It is common sense that, words and multi-words are considered as the building blocks of verbal communication (Elgort & Nation, 2010). The task of word learning is an essential progress in children’s lives. It is important for communication in a foreign language. All second language learners and their teachers are well aware of the fact that learning a second language (L2) involves the learning of a large number of words (Hulstijn & Laufer, 2001). Vocabulary teaching and learning is deemed to be central to the theory and practice of ELT (Carter, 2001)

Methods

Results

Conclusion