Andrea Ender
Ignoring, Memorizing, Embedding or Anchoring?
Cognitive Aspects of Lexical Processing and Vocabulary
Acquisition by Experienced Language Learners
Series A: General & Theoretical Papers
ISSN 1435-6473
Essen: LAUD 2008
Paper No. 724
Universität Duisburg-Essen
Andrea Ender
University of Bern (Switzerland)
Ignoring, Memorizing, Embedding or Anchoring?
Cognitive Aspects of Lexical Processing and Vocabulary
Acquisition by Experienced Language Learners
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2008
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General and Theoretical
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Andrea Ender
Ignoring, Memorizing, Embedding or Anchoring?
Cognitive Aspects of Lexical Processing and Vocabulary
Acquisition by Experienced Language Learners
Abstract
The subject of this paper are lexical processing strategies by advanced German speaking
learners of French when reading a text for comprehension as well as the relevance of these
strategies for vocabulary acquisition. The strategies, which learners use to cope with
unknown lexical items, are analyzed with regard to the cognitive operations involved. The
features of the different processes that lead to retention of new vocabulary are discussed in
detail by introspective data during the reading process and the results of a vocabulary test.
It is examined how provisional lexical entries in the mental lexicon are created on the basis
of implicit and explicit processes. Thereby, the important question about the relevance of
implicit processing in vocabulary acquisition on the one hand and the active, elaborate and
explicit processing of information on the other hand is discussed. The results provide
additional information concerning the depth of processing hypothesis.
1 Introduction
Vocabulary acquisition is a domain which recently attracted increasing attention in second
language acquisition research. Even if we are able to learn about 30 words per hour by
studying a list of vocabulary (cf. Ellis 1994: 256), this is not the most common way of
advanced learners’ acquisition of lexical items. Research evidence is available from various
L2 contexts that demonstrates vocabulary learning from reading as well as from other
language input (Fraser 1999; Paribakht/Wesche 1999; Wode 1999; Hulstijn 1992; Joe
1998). It is thus rather assumed, “that at least some, if not a large part, of one’s second
language vocabulary is acquired incidentally – that is, as a by-product of other cognitive
exercises involving comprehension” (Gass 1999: 319).
In the debate about incidental vocabulary acquisition the main pedagogical activity or
the main aim of the learners are differently emphasized (cf. Gass 1999, Paribakht/Wesche
1999). The reasons for this may be that a specific linguistic structure or item may not be the
focus of attention in the teaching activity or that learners are focused on something other
than learning itself. Therefore, a very general definition of incidental vocabulary acquisition
characterizes it as the “unintentional picking up of information” in situations where learners
“are not forewarned of an upcoming retention test for a particular type of information”
(Hulstijn 2005: 131). The incidental acquisition of vocabulary by experienced language
1
learners who are reading a text for comprehension is also the main focus of this paper.
Based on data from an explorative study, it addresses the following research questions:
•
•
•
Which strategies are most often used when encountering an unknown word and
which of these strategies lead to retention of the formerly unknown vocabulary?
Is vocabulary acquisition influenced by implicit and explicit processes and how
does implicit and explicit processing of new lexical items differ in terms of the
retention or learning of new vocabulary?
How can the relation between implicit/explicit processing and retention of
unknown information be described best?
Thus, the important distinction but also the interface between implicit and incidental
learning are discussed. The data illustrates the cognitive processes in the handling of
unknown lexical items and shows the effect of different cognitive processes on the retention
of the respective items. Therewith, the importance of implicit and explicit processes and
their interaction in incidental vocabulary acquisition are presented.
2 Learning Processes in Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition
An incidental vocabulary learning hypothesis is based on the assumption that learners
acquire new lexical items without the intent to do so, for example, by “understanding the
passage as a whole, and memory for the new word comes as a natural result of this process,
a conscious efforts to learn being unnecessary” (Ellis 1994: 219). The unintentional
retention of information must, however, not be equated with implicit learning. Implicit
learning is the counterpart of explicit learning, which can be defined as “input processing
with the conscious intention to find out whether the input information contains regularities
and, if so, to work out the concepts and rules with which these regularities can be captured”,
whereas implicit learning is “input processing without such an intention, taking place
unconsciously” (Hulstijn 2005: 131). However, ‘unconscious’ is an ambiguous term,
because it could mean without the conscious intention to learn – and implicit learning would
thus correspond to incidental learning. In order to keep the definitions apart, it must be
defined as ‘without awareness by the learner’ (cf. Rieder 2003: 26). Implicit vocabulary
acquisition would therefore be the totally-unconscious 1 and unaware learning of new words
as a result of exposure to the respective item in a meaningful context. In contrast, the
explicit learning of vocabulary is characterized through selective attention and the use of
strategies to try to determine the meaning of the lexical unit (cf. Ellis 1994: 219).
1
For a detailed discussion about the vague term “consciousness” in language learning cf. for example
Rieder (2003).
2
Figure 1. Intersection between incidental learning and implicit/explicit processes
+/- Intention to learn
Intentional
acquisition
vocabulary
Incidental
acquisition
vocabulary
+/- Conscious processing
explicit
acquisition
vocabulary
implicit
acquisition
vocabulary
Furthermore, it must be underlined that the above two pairs operate on different levels:
Incidental/intentional learning concentrates on the aim of the learner during accomplishing a
language activity, whereas implicit/explicit learning focuses on the processes during the
task. Therefore, the dichotomy incidental/intentional lies beside and somehow crosses the
pair implicit/explicit learning.
Given the above definitions, intentional learning can only be accomplished by explicit
processes, whereas incidental learning can result from implicit and explicit learning
processes. Whereas little is known about the implicit processes, the explicit processing of
new information by learners can – yet without the learners’ intention to do so – result in
learning. Even if a general distinction between discovery and consolidation strategies for
vocabulary learning is generally legitimate (cf. Schmitt 1997), it does not always correspond
to the learners’ reality – a strategy that is applied in order to determine the meaning of a
lexical unit can also induce consolidation in the learners’ mental lexicon. The role of the
active, strategic processing by learners in the determination process must therefore be
accentuated and as Ellis (1994: 219) states
[…] that we have not been taught vocabulary does not entail that we have not
taught ourselves. An explicit vocabulary learning hypothesis would hold that
there is some benefit to vocabulary acquisition from the learner noticing novel
vocabulary, selectively attending to it, and using a variety of strategies to try to
infer its meaning from the context.
The mental activities that learners engage in when they encounter an unfamiliar word are
various. Usually, the term ‘lexical processing strategy’ refers to one of the strategic options
a learner has when dealing with an unfamiliar word (cf. Fraser 1999: 226): ignore the lexical
item and continue reading, consult a dictionary or another individual or infer the meaning
on the basis of different cues, namely linguistic or contextual ones. Apart from ignoring,
these strategies fulfil the obvious and explicit aim of determining the word’s meaning.
These determination strategies can easily be combined and a learner can first infer and
subsequently consult a reference book.
The strategy of guessing the meaning can be further subdivided according to the cue
on which the guessing is based. Learners can infer a meaning (1) from the context and on
the basis of their knowledge of the world (extralingual/contextual cue) or (2) from
3
associations based on knowledge of the target language (intralingual cue) or (3) from
associations to existing knowledge in another language, namely the L1 or another foreign
language (interlingual cue). 2
The different determination strategies and consequently the retention effect of the
strategies rely on typical explicit cognitive processes that are either more top-down or
bottom-up oriented. With bottom-up processing, the learner starts from features of the
lexical item itself and moves forward to the integration of a possible meaning at the text
level, whereas with top-down processing, learners start from the overall context to
determine the meaning of a word (cf. O’Malley/Chamot 1990: 47). The different lexical
processing strategies and the cognitive processes involved can be categorized as follows:
consulting a dictionary, and interlingual as well as intralingual inferring are more bottom-up
oriented strategies, whereas the guessing of a meaning by extralingual or contextual cues is
more top-down oriented (cf. Qian 2004: 163f).
By consulting a dictionary, the learners start with the isolation of a lexical form.
During the search in the reference book, they typically memorize the encountered item: they
usually repeat the item several times and in many cases make a little written note when they
determine a meaning and repeat the item once again, before they refocus on the text level
and on global comprehension. The inter- and intralingual associations are also bottom-up
oriented strategies, given the fact that learners start from features of the word and detect an
association to given linguistic knowledge. They are initially form-focussed, but usually
learners finish by determining a meaning that fits into the whole context. In contrast, the
guessing based on extralingual and contextual cues is mostly characterized as a top-down
process, whereby the meaning of a specific item is inferred by the surrounding linguistic
context or by the knowledge about possible relations in the world. A formerly unknown
word is embedded in a context that assigns a possible meaning to it.
The way from the first encounter with an unfamiliar lexical item to the successful
integration of (some) important features of that item in the mental lexicon is significantly
influenced by the depth of the processes involved. This basically depends on the discussed,
but widely accepted, assumption about the important role of attention:
Learning in the sense of establishing new or modified knowledge, memory,
skills, and routines is therefore largely, and perhaps exclusively, a side effect of
attended processing.
(Schmidt 2001, 29)
2
In other studies dealing with related issues similar classifications are proposed. Fraser (1999), for
example, distinguishes between L1 and L2 word identifications, and sense creation. As the present study
is concerned with students with a broad language background, the term ‘interlingual’ seems more
appropriate because associations to languages other than their mother tongue are very probable. As a
consequence, the associations to the target language are named ‘intralingual’.
4
Research evidence in the field of vocabulary acquisition supports the idea of ‘depth of
processing’ (cf. Craik/Lockhardt 1972; Craik/Tulving 1975) which underlines the positive
effect of elaborate processes on different linguistic levels during the activity. Different
studies investigated the effects of different processing in learning activities (cf. Hulstijn
1992; Joe 1998; Mondria 2003), for example, the learning effect through text production,
reading and filling in blanks and reading only (cf. Laufer/Hulstijn 2001) or the correlation
between a rich context – as a facilitation for inferring – and a decreasing chance for
retention (cf. Mondria/Wit-de Boer 1991). It is therefore hardly a one-to-one-relation
between a specific lexical processing strategy and the increased chance to retain the
respective lexical item. Rather, the combination of the varying need to process an item
elaborately and the way the learner meets the challenge on various (e.g. semantic,
grammatical) linguistic levels are decisive. As "the richness with which the material is
encoded" (Hulstijn 2001: 270) is central for the learning, activities and processes that
demand more involvement from the learners result in better retention.
Laufer/Hulstijn (2001) therefore introduce the concept of involvement load which is a
combination of one motivational (need) and two cognitive dimensions (search, evaluation).
The involvement load of a reading for comprehension task for vocabulary acquisition can
generally be characterized as +need (the motivation to satisfy the task), +search (the attempt
to find the meaning of the word) and +evaluation (assessment of the potential meaning of
the discovered form-meaning pair). In order to understand the text, the learners are usually
eager to understand unkown words and try to find out the meaning by an explicit process
and usually evaluate the proposed meaning. However, this general task-induced
involvement is not the same for every word (cf. Laufer/Hulstijn 2001: 16). If for a specific
item the need is very low this will entail neither a search nor an evaluation, but for all
explicit processes the general pattern of the comprehension task is in principle valid.
Therefore, the difference between the chances to recall a meaning lies in the details of the
explicit processes and these have to be evaluated in detail.
3 Methodology
The presented data emerge from an explorative study about incidental vocabulary
acquisition which can be best described by the following characteristics.
3.1 Subjects
The 24 participants in the study are students from the Department of Romance Languages
and Literature at the University of Innsbruck. They are all studying French and they are
chosen from the same language course which is part of their curriculum. By this criterion, it
can be assumed that the students have reached almost the same level of proficiency, but that
there are still individual differences depending in the varying language skills.
5
In general, the participants are advanced learners of French with considerable language
learning experience. The participants have been learning French for at least five and at most
nine and a half years. Beside the general fact that the participants have decided to study a
language intensively, their experience is strengthened by the two points that French is
traditionally the third language in the language learning biography of an Austrian student
and that many students of French are simultaneously studying another (Romance) language.
Therefore, 15 out of 24 participants have learned at least four foreign languages. As most
language students in Austria are female, only a small proportion of the participants (3 out of
24) is male.
By their language learning experience, the students were all used to cope with the task
demanded in the study.
3.2 Procedure
Pretest. In the pretest the students are confronted with two different texts: a newspaper
article and a literary text. The texts do not contain grammatical difficulties for advanced
students of French, but a reasonable amount of new vocabulary.
During their French class, the participants are asked to read the texts and to highlight
the words and phrases they do not know. This procedure is intended to indicate the amount
of unknown words in the texts.
The reading-for-comprehension-situation. In an individual session, each student was asked
to read the two texts, summarize the content and answer study questions. The students are
recorded during the reading and comprehending process and they are asked to speak their
thoughts out loud. These think-aloud protocols document the way the participants cope with
unknown vocabulary and therefore provide indications of their strategic behaviour.
The follow-up vocabulary test. A week after the reading situation, the participants are tested
on their retention of new words and phrases by the use of the VKS – Vocabulary
Knowledge Scale by Wesche/Paribakht (1996). For each primarily unknown word they
should now declare their knowledge:
I:
II:
III:
IV:
V:
I don’t remember having seen this word before.
I have seen this word before but I don’t know what it means.
I have seen this word before and I think it means _________________
(synonym of translation)
I know this word. It means _________________ (synonym of translation).
I can use this word in a sentence, e.g.
_______________________________________ (if you do this section please
also do IV).
This unannounced vocabulary test – the students simply expected a debriefing – indicates the
number of learned lexical items from the text and the extend to which they have been retained.
6
3.3 Analyses
The think-aloud protocols are transcribed and subsequent analyses about the strategic
behaviour are based on these transcripts and the notes made by the researcher during the
reading session. The way students cope with unknown vocabulary in the text is assigned to
one of the processing strategies (cf. Fraser 1999: 226). People can either
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
ignore the unknown word,
use a dictionary (bilingual of monolingual dictionary),
infer the word meaning by the help of different clues,
infer the word meaning and subsequently use a dictionary.
According to a procedure by Wesche/Paribakht (1996: 30), the answers to the vocabulary
knowledge scale are rescored according to their accuracy.
Table 1. VKS scoring categories: Meaning of scores (Wesche/Paribakht 1996: 30)
self-report
categories
I
II
III
IV
V
possible
scores
1
2
3
4
5
meaning of scores
The word is not familiar at all.
The word is familiar but its meaning is not known.
A correct synonym or translation is given.
The word is used with semantic appropriateness in a sentence.
The word is used with semantic appropriateness and grammatical
accuracy in a sentence.
Category I always remains at level 1; the same goes for category II and level 2. Category III
and IV can be scored at level 3 if the synonym or translation is adequate or are rescored to
level 2 if the meaning is incorrect. Category V remains at this level if the word is used with
semantic and grammatical accuracy, otherwise the item is rescored to one of the appropriate
categories 2, 3 or 4.
Based on these data, the relation between the way students cope with unknown
vocabulary and the retention of the respective item can be analyzed in detail.
4 Results
The total amount of unknown vocabulary in the two texts varies considerably from 10 to 50
(with an average of 28 words) for each student. All in all, the behaviour of the 24 students
during reading the text displayed 668 lexical processing strategies.
As illustrated in figure 2, ignoring an unknown word and consulting a dictionary are
the most frequent strategies; they are used in 255 and 268 cases. Inferring the word meaning
from different clues is used in 68 cases as the only strategy; in 79 situations, the students
combine inferring with a subsequent search in the dictionary.
7
Figure 2. Lexical processing strategies (n=668)
infer & consult
12%
infer
10%
ignore
38%
consult
40%
In the context of the given task, it is not surprising that more than a third of the initially
unknown words in the texts are ignored. If the students ignore a word, they probably judge
it as not being essential for the comprehension of the text. Sometimes, this is even
explicated by the students as in the following example:
vénérable / I don’t know the word (…) and (.) I can’t necessarily infer it from
another word that I already know in English, Latin or French (…) I know that it
is an adjective that characterizes le support and (..) yes well I will not consult a
dictionary because it is not really essential to understand the rest of the text
(TN24 19:00) 3
The fact that students ignore a big proportion of the unknown vocabulary during a
comprehension task is also confirmed in other studies on related topics where students
ignored approximately half the words they identified as unknown (cf. Paribakht/Wesche
1999: 204). In this respect the learners of the present study are even more anxious to
explicitly bridge the gaps in their knowledge.
Though, if the students try to determine the meaning of an unknown word, they mostly
consult a bilingual dictionary – the monolingual dictionary is only very rarely used (by one
third of the learners, but in only 5 % of the 347 situations, where the learners consult a
reference book). In the 145 inferring procedures, the students make use of the different clues
mentioned in section 2 with the following rates.
3
The think-aloud protocols presented in this article constitute English translations of the original
verbalizations, which were in German (the learners’ L1) or in French (the target language of the study).
The italic passages constitute parts of the original French text of the comprehension task.
8
Table 2. Involvement of different knowledge sources in the inferring procedures
absolute
numbers
%
total
intralingual
interlingual
extralingual
& contextual
multiple
sources
inexplicit
145
35
13
68
6
23
100
24
9
47
4
16
Most often, namely in almost half of the situations, the students rely on the meaning of the
context and/or their knowledge about the world. The associations based on other knowledge
sources are comparatively far behind. The students use their existing knowledge in the
target language (= intralingual) in 24 % and their knowledge of other languages (=
intralingual) in 9 % of the inferring processes. In only 4 % of the situations, the learners
apparently mix the different clues. In the rest of the situations (=16 %), the verbalization of
the students indicate an inferring procedure. However, the information given in the verbal
report is either not enough to assign one of the knowledge sources as the main clue for the
inferring procedure or is not comprehensible.
If we consider the fact that the learners are experienced and multilingual, in the sense
that they have already learned other (related) languages and that they are supposed to have
broad linguistic background knowledge, it is rather surprising that they use intralingual
associations only very infrequently. Even if the inference only strategies (10 %) and the
inferences in combination with consulting a dictionary (12 %) are taken together, we only
attain the score of 22 % inferences out of the lexical processing strategies. Therefore, the
learners in the present study do not seem to be active guessers even though their answers to
the strategy inventory by Oxford (1990) reporting their strategic behaviour identifies
themselves as strategy experienced learners (cf. Ender 2007: 127).
Vocabulary-learning scores had a range from 8 to 59 % for the individual participants,
with an overall average of 27 % (SD=13,25) 4 . Learners are very different in their proportion
of learned words. In order to find out about the possible reasons for the differences the
effect of the different strategies is analyzed separately. We suppose that different lexical
processing strategies have a varying effect and therefore the proportions of the different
knowledge scores in the vocabulary test are displayed separately according to the way the
learners processed the respective items 5 .
4
5
This general result is quite similar to the study reported by Fraser (1999), but varies in the details. She
does not, for example, report learning after ignoring; consulting and inferring are equally successful and
the combination of consulting and inferring is significantly more efficient (cf. Fraser 1999: 235).
The use of the terms retention and learning should not presume that the learners have built fully
specified lexical entries in their mental lexicon. Considering learning as an incremental process, the
recall of (one of) the correct meaning(s) was sufficient. The cases, where learners inferred a wrong
meaning and recalled this inappropriate meaning were very rare and not counted as retention.
9
Table 3. Proportions of the vocabulary knowledge scores according to the lexical
processing strategies
lexical processing strategies in general
meaning not
recalled
meaning
recalled
subgroups of inferencing
ignore
consult
infer
infer &
consult
intralingual
interlingual
contextual &
extralingual
n=238
n=256
n=57
n=76
n=34
n=11
n=63
score 1
18
14
2
7
3
0
6
score 2
70
58
41
47
32
27
57
score 3
9
18
21
22
29
36
17
score 4
1
2
9
4
9
9
3
score 5
2
7
29
20
26
27
16
As shown in table 2, the ignoring of unknown words during reading or the absence of an
explicit strategy does only rarely, but nevertheless in 12 % of the cases, lead to retention of the
respective item. One important distinction has to be mentioned: In 13 % of the cases, the
learners explicitly ignore an item by stating “I don’t know this word” or “I haven’t seen this
word before” or by explaining – as mentioned above – why it is not worth determining the
meaning of the respective item. In the remaining 87 % of the cases, the students do not show
any explicit processing of the word. When it comes to learning despite of ignoring, only those
cases – in which an implicit assignment of meaning is conceivable – are concerned. The lexical
items, that are recalled after such an implicit process, however, mostly arrive at score 3. That is
to say, the learners design an appropriate translation equivalent.
In the cases of explicit search for a meaning the learners attain significantly higher
retention scores. For an illustration of the general learning effect, the five point scale from
the VKS was collapsed to a 2-point-scale (meaning of a lexical item recalled [score 3, 4, 5]
vs. meaning not recalled [score 1, 2]).
Figure 3. Proportion of recalled items according to the different strategies
100%
90%
80%
41
54
70%
72
60%
88
not recalled
recalled
50%
40%
30%
59
46
20%
28
10%
12
0%
ignore
consult
infer
10
infer & consult
Meanings that were determined by the means of a dictionary are recalled in 28 % of the
cases, whereas the retention rate for inferring is 59 % and the recall after a combination of
the two processes is 46 %. This difference is not statistically significant, whereas the
difference between the recall after consulting and inferring is statistically significant as well
as the variation between consulting only and the combination of consulting and inferring.
The result for the successful retention after inferring is thus a very general one because the
retention rate varies considerably according to the different knowledge involved.
Figure 4. Proportion of recalled items according to the guessing strategies in detail
100%
90%
80%
35
27
70%
63
60%
not recalled
recalled
50%
40%
30%
65
73
20%
37
10%
0%
intralingual
interlingual
extralingual &
contextual
Intralingual associations and interlingual associations with rates of 65 % and 72 % of recall
are far more successful than the extralingual & contextual based inferring procedures (37
%). Here, the difference between the intralingual and interlingual associations does not
constitute a statistically significant difference, whereas the ones between the language based
strategies and the context based strategies do. Context based sense creation is thus the more
frequent, but the less efficient process for learning.
5 Discussion and Conclusion
This paper reports on results from a study about incidental vocabulary acquisition during
reading for comprehension. The results support existing evidence about the possibilities of
unintentional learning. Concerning the use of the different strategies, it is nevertheless
surprising that students in the present study refer to inferring procedures only to a minor
degree. Other studies report values of not less than 44 % (Fraser 1999) or not less than 73 %
11
(Paribakht/Wesche 1999) of inference for unknown vocabulary6. A vast amount of unknown
vocabulary is ignored and if the learners try to determine a meaning they rely heavily on
dictionaries. Both strategies are far less efficient for the retention of a lexical item.
These results are especially unexpected because the present learners are multilingual and
experienced learners. They show the high rates one would expect from multilingual and
experienced learners in a self-declaration about their strategy use (cf. Ender 2007). However,
only in very rare cases do they exhibit their broad linguistic background in the form of
interlingual guessing strategies. Regarding the overall success in vocabulary acquisition, the
students show a similar effect for incidental vocabulary acquisition than reported so far (e.g.
Fraser 1999). It must therefore be concluded that they prevent the discovered meanings to
quickly fade from their working memory by other means of input processing.
The retention effects that arise by ignoring can be interpreted as implicit learning. As
there are no apparent signs in the verbal data, it must be supposed that the students did not
explicitly process the respective items, e.g. apparently infer the meaning. Presumably, they
processed the items unconsciously in the given context without being able to report this.
This inexplicit processing was nevertheless sufficient to engender a preliminary lexical
entry from which the meaning could be recalled in the vocabulary test. The strong
distinction between only explicit learning for meaning and meditational aspects of
vocabulary and implicit learning for formal aspects (cf. Ellis 1994) can therefore, in a strict
sense, not be confirmed. The present results seem to demonstrate that also the meaning
aspects of vocabulary do not necessarily involve conscious learning processes at the
semantic and conceptual levels and attention to the form-meaning connections.
In comparison to these quite rare indications of implicit learning processes, the explicit
ones are naturally far more efficient. The chance to recall a meaning is more than twice as
high for consulting the dictionary, even if this strategy is still the least powerful of the
explicit lexical processing strategies. For the explicit strategies the general involvement of
the learner into the task is increased, given the fact that the learners feel the need to
determine the meaning of a lexical item, explicitly search for it and decide whether the
detected or inferred meaning is a possible option (cf. Laufer/Hulstijn 2001). With a detailed
look, possible reasons for the significant differences between the explicit lexical processing
strategies can be detected.
Consulting a dictionary is a task that does not demand a very high analytical effort; the
challenging part for the learner is the detection of correct meaning if the dictionary mentions
multiple options. The time during the mechanical search is very often used for a
memorization of the lexical item, e.g.
6
That means that in these studies depending on the manner of counting, the lexical processing strategies
or on the different language activity this is always the lowest reported value which can increase up to
over 80 % of inference strategies.
12
Seulement, il ne se sentait pas dans son= (..) he doesn’t feel on his plate? assiette
that‘s a plate (.6.) perhaps something else fits in here (…) assiette (.) plate yes (.) oh
it can also mean location or place (…) ne pas être, ne pas se sentir (..) ah not to be
up to the mark / ah therefore (..) he doesn’t feel up to the mark / il ne se sentait pas
dans dans son assiette / he didn’t feel up to the mark / se sentir dans son assiette
(TN2 15:30)
Besides the search and the memorization during the search, the learners very often make a
note on their sheet. This could eventually even decrease the chance of retention, because
this action relieves the requirements to the memory, but a significant correlation cannot be
found in the data. It can very generally be supposed, that the concentration on a formmeaning pair which is offered by a reference book does not involve a deep cognitive effort.
The lack of analyzing cannot be counter-balanced by memorizing or making notes.
The guessing strategy which is least efficient is sense creation in the context or by the
means of word knowledge, e.g.
Le matin du 16 avril, le docteur Bernard Rieux sortit de son cabinet et buta sur
un rat mort, au milieu du palier. % buta I don’t know this word / but from the
context I infer that it means something like to put the foot on something
somehow to step on something
(TN8 0:30)
Making use of a top-down approach, the interpretation of the context leads the learners to a
possible meaning. Even if this process demands a cognitive effort from the learners, the
established meaning is not automatically conserved. It is embedded in the actual context,
can very likely be recalled in a similar context, but also tends to fade without it. Inferring
from the context is a process that mainly concentrates on the meaning side and mostly
neglects the formal aspects of the lexical item. Despite the increased cognitive effort it is
therefore not the strategy that leaves the best traces in the memory.
The inferring strategies that operate on the combination of form and meaning features
are more efficient. They can especially be used by learners with broad existing linguistic
knowledge; e.g. in the target language as in the first example or in another language with
cognates as in the second example:
Justement, le docteur trouva le concierge devant la maison, adossé % adossé
[…] because here it is adossé au mur and because I know that dos is the back, I
know that he leans against the wall
(TN24 6:45)
empilement I can infer a meaning from English because piles are packs of sheets
(.) piles of books or piles of files % (.) and this also fits into the context
(TN1 21:30)
Here, the learner can resort to an existing form-meaning combination and she can use this as
an anchor for the discovered item. The thereby established connection is solid and greatly
facilitates the recall of the new form-meaning pair. This strategy is highly efficient, but
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rarely used even by experienced learners and unfortunately dependent on cognates or
observable similarities.
All in all, the conscious decision to determine the meaning of a lexical item is the first
promoting factor, but beside this we have to suppose that experienced learners and readers,
in very few cases, have the ability to absorb a meaning from the context and rapidly map it
onto a given form. In explicit processing, the cognitive demand of analyzing the input
material during the process is the second selective factor which mainly distinguishes the
search in a dictionary from an inference. Finally, it seems to be a crucial point whether the
learner includes form as well as meaning aspects in the analysis. With this combination of
factors the chance for a preliminary entry in the mental lexicon is most probable. Incidental
vocabulary acquisition thus seems to be composed of implicit and explicit learning with a
stepwise structure of facilitating effects. The detailed identification and interaction of the
presented factors and of additional aspects can still be the issues of further investigations
and theoretical conceptualization.
14
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