A study on L2 acquisition of Chinese near-synonyms

Abstract

Near-synonyms refer to words that share one or more similar meanings. Since there are a great number of near-synonyms in a language, expansion of one's vocabulary is inevitably related to near-synonym learning which can also be a great challenge due to the similarity of certain words in meaning. Therefore, it is critical in vocabulary teaching to encourage learners to construct a network of near-synonyms and make use of them properly. Using interlanguage corpus, paper-and-pencil tests, a lexical decision task by semantic priming paradigm, a self-assessment of learning difficulty, a sentence acceptability judgment task as well as interviews, I investigated the acquisition of Chinese near-synonyms by learners of Chinese as a second language (hereafter CSL learners) in this dissertation. From the perspective of word formation, three acquisition features have been investigated. Firstly, whether shared morphemes have a major impact on CSL learners' acquisition of near-synonyms. The overall results showed that in general CSL learners tended to consider words with shared morphemes as near-synonyms. For learners of elementary and intermediate proficiency levels, constructing near-synonymous relations based on the shared morphemes was notable. For advanced learners, the impact of shared morphemes diminished, while awareness of structuring near-synonymous relations based on the meaning of words became stronger. Therefore, it indicated that the construction of a near-synonym network followed a dynamic developmental process from a morpheme-based stage to a word-based stage. Secondly, the impact of shared morphemes on constructing a near-synonym network varied with language backgrounds of CSL learners. Specifically, Korean and Japanese learners tested significantly higher than European and American learners on near-synonyms with shared morphemes while the inverse is true for near-synonyms without shared morphemes. Thirdly, the relative spatial position of the shared morphemes also had an influence on the strength of connection of near-synonyms in the mental lexicon. In general, the connection between near-synonyms with initial or final shared morphemes was stronger than those with cross-shared morphemes. Furthermore, it was found that with lower Chinese proficiency, the connection between near-synonyms with initial shared morphemes was closer than that with final shared morphemes, but the connective strength in these two situations was less significant for advanced learners. From the perspective of differences in usage among near-synonyms, the acquisition of the differences among near-synonyms became more and more specific and automatic with the increased proficiency level. At first, CSL learners constructed near-synonymous relations between words rather than word senses, which may result in confusion because not all of the senses between the two words are near-synonymous. With the improvement of Chinese proficiency, CSL learners can decompose a word into different senses in their mental lexicon and construct near-synonymous connection in senses of words, which results in the confusion about usages of different senses decreasing. As to differences between similar senses of near-synonyms, the prominent degree of distinguishing features exerted an influence on acquisition difficulties and sequences. In general, CSL learners appeared to acquire the more prominent syntactic differences earlier and more firmly than the less prominent semantic differences. The distribution of errors in near-synonyms in Chinese interlanguage corpus also indicated that whether syntactic distinguishing features existed or not had an influence on the acquisition of near-synonyms. Errors were more common on near-synonyms with syntactic similarity but subtle semantic distinction than on those with a pronounced syntactic distinction. Such distribution characteristics were consistent across the variations in language proficiency and language backgrounds. In addition, the study also found the causes of errors with near-synonyms including negative transfer from their mother tongue, insufficient knowledge of the target language, as well as problems with use of communication strategies and teaching material. Based on the above conclusions, suggestions related to definitions of near-synonyms in textbooks and reference books, discriminating methods, as well as teaching strategies regarding near-synonyms are offered. Furthermore, an empirical study on the teaching of near-synonyms to CSL learners showed that explicit instruction of the differences significantly improved the acquisition of the differences between near-synonyms, and that discovery-based instruction resulted in better acquisition of near-synonyms than the traditional expository instruction did. In the teaching of near-synonyms, measures should be taken to increase the task-induced involvement load for the learners to actively discover the usage differences of near-synonyms.

Date of Award	3 Oct 2014
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	City University of Hong Kong
Supervisor	Haihua PAN (Supervisor)