Word Frequency Dominance and L2 Word Recognition/VocabatTokyo

Tamura, Y., Morita, M., & Nishimura, Y. (2016). Word frequency dominance and L2 word recognition in English. Paper presented at Vocab@Tokyo, Meiji Gakuin University, Tokyo, Japan.

Transcript

1. Word Frequency Dominance and L2 Word Recognition September 12, 2016 Vocab@Tokyo Meiji Gakuin University, Tokyo, Japan 1
2. Overview • Introduction • Background • The Present Study • Results • Discussion • Conclusion 2
3. Yu TAMURA (Nagoya University) Mitsuhiro MORITA (Hiroshima University) Yoshito NISHIMURA (Nagoya University) 3
4. Overview • Introduction • Background • The Present Study • Results • Discussion • Conclusion 4
5. • Morphology • Inflectional morphology • -ed, -ing, 3rd-person -s, plural -s, -er • Derivational morphology • prefix • pre- (e.g., precondition), dis- (e.g., disagree) • suffix • -able (e.g., wearable), -ish (e.g., boyish) Introduction 5 Morphological Processing
6. • Morphology • Inflectional morphology • -ed, -ing, 3rd-person -s, plural -s, -er • Derivational morphology • prefix • pre- (e.g., precondition), dis- (e.g., disagree) • suffix • -able (e.g., wearable), -ish (e.g., boyish) Introduction 6 Morphological Processing
7. • Morphology • Inflectional morphology • -ed, -ing, 3rd-person -s, plural -s, -er • Derivational morphology • prefix • pre- (e.g., precondition), dis- (e.g., disagree) • suffix • -able (e.g., wearable), -ish (e.g., boyish) Introduction 7 Morphological Processing
8. • Recognition process • Visual word recognition • How morphology is processed in reading • Auditory word recognition • How morphology is processed in listening Introduction 8 Morphological Processing
9. • Recognition process • Visual word recognition • How morphology is processed in reading • Auditory word recognition • How morphology is processed in listening Introduction 9 Morphological Processing
10. Findings of This Study • No evidence of direct access to the inflected (plural) forms -> Morphological decomposition 10 Introduction
11. Overview • Introduction • Background • The Present Study • Results • Discussion • Conclusion 11
12. Overview • Introduction • Background • The Present Study • Results • Discussion • Conclusion 12
13. • The more frequent, the faster • Three positions of the morphological processing mechanism • Full-form storage model (e.g., Sereno & Jongman, 1997) • Obligatory decomposition (e.g., Taft, 2004) • Dual-route model (e.g., Baayen, Dijkstra, & Schreuder, 1997) Background 13 Frequency Effects
14. • The more frequent, the faster processing • Three positions of the morphological processing mechanism • Full-form storage model (e.g., Sereno & Jongman, 1997) • Obligatory decomposition (e.g., Taft, 2004) • Dual-route model (e.g., Baayen, Dijkstra, & Schreuder, 1997) Background 14 Frequency Effects
15. • Full-form storage model (e.g., Sereno & Jongman, 1997) • Base forms and inflected forms • stored separately • show frequency effects Background 15 Frequency Effects rule rules rule rules
16. • The more frequent, the faster processing • Three positions of the morphological processing mechanism • Full-form storage model (e.g.,Sereno & Jongman, 1997) • Obligatory decomposition (e.g., Taft, 2004) • Dual-route model (e.g., Baayen, Dijkstra, & Schreuder, 1997) Background 16 Frequency Effects
17. • Obligatory decomposition (e.g., Taft, 2004) • Inflected forms • are always decomposed • do not show frequency effects Background 17 Frequency Effects rule rules rule rules
18. • The more frequent, the faster processing • Three positions of the morphological processing mechanism • Full-form storage model (e.g., Sereno & Jongman, 1997) • Obligatory decomposition (e.g., Taft, 2004) • Dual-route model (e.g., Baayen, Dijkstra, & Schreuder, 1997) Background 18 Frequency Effects
19. • Dual-route model (e.g., Baayen, Dijkstra, & Schreuder, 1997) • Frequently occurred inflected forms • are processed as a whole • show frequency effects Background 19 Frequency Effects kid kids kid kids rule rules rule rules High frequent inflected forms Low frequent inflected forms faster
20. • Frequency difference between base forms and inflected forms • Singular-dominant nouns • Singular (base) forms > plural (inflected) forms • e.g., ball, box • Plural-dominant nouns • Plural (inflected) forms > singular forms (base) • e.g., kids, tears Background 20 Frequency Dominance
21. • Baayen et al. (1997) • Dutch • No Reaction Time (RT) difference between • Plural dominant plurals and plural dominant singulars • Highly frequent inflected forms would not be decomposed but processed as a whole • Support dual-route model • New et al. (2004) • French and English • Support Baayen et al. (1997) Background 21 Frequency Dominance
22. • Morita (2007) • Investigated whether the frequency of the inflected words would affect the processing of the base forms • Cumulative frequency (sg + pl) predicts the lexical decision time for native speakers of English • -> dual-route or decomposition • Surface frequency (sg only) predicts the lexical decision time for Japanese L2 learners of English • -> full-form strage? Background 22 Frequency Dominance
23. • How do L2 learners of English process and represent regularly inflected words? • Hypothesis • If… • frequent inflected forms < infrequent base forms -> highly frequent inflected forms are processed as a whole • frequent inflected forms > infrequent base forms -> inflected words are decomposed • frequent inflected forms > infrequent inflected forms -> frequency of the base forms matter Background 23 Research Questions
24. Overview • Introduction • Background • The Present Study • Results • Discussion • Conclusion 24
25. Overview • Introduction • Background • The Present Study • Results • Discussion • Conclusion 25
26. • 72 Japanese undergraduate students Table 1. Descriptive statistics of the TOEIC score The Present Study 26 Participants N M SD Min Max TOEIC score 72 575.42 104.19 325 800
27. 1. Frequency list of nouns (both singular and plural forms) from British National Corpus (BNC) 2. 18 words which double or triple in frequency of singular form compared to plural form -> singular- dominant words The Present Study 27 Stimuli
28. 3. 18 words which double or triple in frequency of plural form compared to singular form -> plural dominant words 4. 18 words whose frequency of singular and plural form was almost same. -> control words The Present Study 28 Stimuli
29. • The cumulative frequency (sg + pl) was controlled among the three groups Table 2. Mean Frequency and SD in Parentheses The Present Study 29 Stimuli k singular plural base sg-domminant 18 69.865 (25.849) 21.684 (10.931) 91.549 (34.342) pl-dominant 18 22.571 (18.661) 69.898 (43.345) 92.469 (59.779) control 18 47.064 (23.202) 43.893 (24.664) 90.958 (46.185) Note. frequency is based on per million
30. The Present Study 30 Stimuli Table 3. List of Test Items singular-dominant plural-dominant control concept image parent proceeding topic element film ball pound kid rabbit trend science target standard tear bone secret jacket video pupil resident store lesson box hat individual finding principle firm colour map detail critic horse step bar context relation boot rule drug network station resource participant function sport college tower skill chemical plant document
31. • Judge whether the target words were real English words or not • 54 test items (18*3) presented either in singular or plural form • Carefully counterbalanced • The same number of filler items were included The Present Study 31 Lexical Decision Task
32. • Incorrect responses removed (6.6%) • Outliers (M+3SD and RT below 200ms) removed (1.4%) • Generalized linear mixed-effect model (GLMM) • Response variable • Raw RT • Explanatory variable • Presentation (2 levels) • singular or plural • Frequency dominance (3 levels) • sg-dominant, pl-dominant, control • Post-hoc multiple comparison The Present Study 32 Analysis
33. Overview • Introduction • Background • The Present Study • Results • Discussion • Conclusion 33
34. Overview • Introduction • Background • The Present Study • Results • Discussion • Conclusion 34
35. 35 Reaction Time Results k M SD 95%CI LL UL sg-domminant pl 9 838 246 818 858 sg 9 765 232 747 783 pl-dominant pl 9 922 324 896 949 sg 9 857 288 834 880 control pl 9 824 280 802 846 sg 9 719 212 702 735 Table 4. Descriptive Statistics of Reaction Time (ms) Note. N = 72. CI= Confidence Interval; LL = lower limit; UL = upper limit
36. Results 36 Note. Error bar represents 95%CI
37. Results 37 Note. Error bar represents 95%CI Significant differences
38. Results 38 Note. Error bar represents 95%CI
39. Results 39 Note. Error bar represents 95%CI Significant differences No significant differences
40. Overview • Introduction • Background • The Present Study • Results • Discussion • Conclusion 40
41. Overview • Introduction • Background • The Present Study • Results • Discussion • Conclusion 41
42. • Singular forms judged faster than plural forms irrespective of the frequency dominance • Singular forms • sg-dominant = control < pl-dominant • Plural forms • sg-dominant = control < pl-dominant Discussion 42 Summary of the Results
43. • Singular forms judged faster than plural forms irrespective of the frequency dominance • Singular forms • sg-dominant = control < pl-dominant • Plural forms • sg-dominant = control < pl-dominant Discussion 43 Summary of the Results
44. • Singular forms judged faster than plural forms irrespective of the frequency dominance • Pl-dominant plurals did not show frequency advantage • L2 learners always decompose plural inflections Discussion 44 Morphological Processing
45. • Singular forms judged faster than plural forms irrespective of the frequency dominance • Singular forms • sg-dominant = control < pl-dominant • Plural forms • sg-dominant = control < pl-dominant Discussion 45 Summary of the Results
46. • Singular forms • sg-dominant = control < pl-dominant • Surface frequency advantage was only found between sg-dominant and pl-dominant • No clear evidence of the surface frequency effect • Frequency of the inflected forms had no effect on the RT for the base forms Discussion 46 Morphological Processing
47. • Singular forms judged faster than plural forms irrespective of the frequency dominance • Singular forms • sg-dominant = control < pl-dominant • Plural forms • sg-dominant = control < pl-dominant Discussion 47 Summary of the Results
48. • Plural forms • sg-dominant = control < pl-dominant • No frequency advantage for pl-dominant plurals • No evidence of direct access to the plural forms • High frequency inflected words were decomposed • Access latency for inflected forms might be affected by base form frequency Discussion 48 Morphological Processing
49. • The experiment only focused on the surface frequency (cumulative frequency was controlled) • The results were entirely on the basis of lexical decision task -> priming task etc. might be needed Discussion 49 Limitations
50. Overview • Introduction • Background • The Present Study • Results • Discussion • Conclusion 50
51. Overview • Introduction • Background • The Present Study • Results • Discussion • Conclusion 51
52. • How do L2 learners of English process and represent regularly inflected words? • They decompose the inflected words irrespective of frequency dominance -> Obligatory decomposition? • No RT difference between control words and sg-dominant words • There still remains the possibility that L2 learners access abstract lexical entries which include both singular and plural forms Conclusion 52
53. Word Frequency Dominance and L2 Word Recognition contact info Yu Tamura Nagoya University yutamura@nagoya-u.jp http://www.tamurayu.wordpress.com/ 53 • Base form frequency seems to matter • Inflected words always decomposed • L2 learners access abstract lexical entries (sg + pl forms)
54. Baayen, R. H., Lieber, R., & Schreuder, R. (1997). The morphological complexity of simplex nouns. Linguistics, 35, 861–877. doi:10.1515/ling.1997.35.5.861 Morita, M. (2007) nihonjin eigo gakusyusya no meishi tansuukei ninshiki niokeru hinndo kouka: hyousou hindo to ruiseki hindo. [Frequency effects on recognition of singular nouns by Japanese learners of English: Surface frequency and cumulative frequency]. Bulletin of the Graduate School of Social & Cultural Systems at Yamagata University, 4, 9–19. New, B., Brysbaert, M., Segui, J., Ferrand, L., & Rastle, K. (2004). The processing of singular and plural nouns in French and English. Journal of Memory and Language, 51, 568–585. Sereno, J. A., & Jongman, A. (1997). Processing of English inflectional morphology. Memory & Cognition, 25, 425–437. doi:10.3758/BF03201119 Taft, M. (2004). Morphological decomposition and the reverse base frequency effect. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology. A, Human Experimental Psychology, 57, 745–765. References 54
55. 55 GLMM Results Note. Number of observation = 3581. N = 72; K = 54. Dominance: 1 = control, 2 = pl-dominant, 3 = sg-dominant Random effects Fixed effects By Subject By Items Parameters Estima te SE t p SD SD Intercept 925.32 23.12 40.03 <.001 67.18 52.15 Dominance2-1,3 85.87 23.60 3.64 <.001 — — Dominance3-1,2 -27.10 20.92 -1.29 .195 — — Presentation1-2 -70.23 5.57 -12.62 <.001 — — Dom2-1,3:Pres 8.39 14.30 0.59 .557 Dom3-1,2:Pres -23.317 12.06 -1.93 .053 — —
56. 56 Post-hoc Multiple Comparison Results Dominance Estimate SE z p control 65.26 9.16 7.12 <.0001 pl-dominant 56.87 10.85 5.24 <.0001 sg-dominant 88.57 8.52 10.39 <.0001 Simple main-effect of presentation (pl vs sg)
57. 57 Post-hoc Multiple Comparison Results Presentation comparison Estimate SE z p plural ctrl - pl -81.68 24.56 -3.33 .003 ctrl - sg 15.44 21.65 0.71 .756 pl - sg 97.12 30.64 3.17 .004 singular ctrl - pl -90.06 24.76 -3.64 <.001 ctrl - sg 38.76 21.90 1.77 .179 pl - sg 88.57 8.52 10.39 <.001 Simple main-effect of frequency dominance