The Contribution of Cognitive Linguistics to the Acquisition of Polysemy: A Dictionary Entry-Based Study with Chinese Learners of English

Abstract

AbstractThis paper reported on a quasi-experimental study into the effectiveness of two types of entries – entries enhanced with cognitive linguistic insights (CL entries) and linearly ordered entries (LO entries) – in promoting L2 learners’ acquisition of English polysemes. Sixty-five college students majoring in English were divided into an experimental group (EG) and a reference group (RG). EG received the CL entries for lift and break in and RG were presented with the corresponding LO entries. Both groups were given twenty minutes to read the entries and to learn the twenty-seven senses. To examine the effectiveness of the two types of entries, an English-Chinese translation test was administered before the learning session (as Test 1), immediately after it (as Test 2) and two weeks later (as Test 3). The results showed that: (1) EG outperformed RG in the comprehension of the target senses on both Test 2 and Test 3. (2) The CL entries were more effective in promoting short-term retention than the LO entries, but had no advantage over the latter in long-term retention. (3) The CL entry for lift facilitated the learning of the target senses more than the LO entry did, but the CL entry for break in was no more effective than the LO entry in helping L2 learners acquire the target senses. The study suggests that the cognitive linguistic view can and should be further applied to treating polysemy in learner’s dictionaries, but the model for CL entries is not always recommendable and the knowledge gained from reading the CL entries needs consolidating.