INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON FIRST AND SECOND
LANGUAGES: EXPLORING THE RELATIONSHIP IN
PEDAGOGY-RELATED CONTEXTS
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
27-28 MARCH, 2009
Morphological awareness and second language receptive and
productive vocabulary knowledge in Japanese learners of
English
Yuko Hayashi
University of Oxford
Victoria A. Murphy
University of Oxford
ADDRESS FOR CORRESPONDENCE
Yuko Hayashi
Department of Education
University of Oxford
15 Norham Gardens
Oxford
OX2 6PY
E-mail: yuko.hayashi@education.ox.ac.uk
Tel: 07949102102
ABSTRACT
Despite the considerable body of vocabulary research, specific relationships between
different types of vocabulary knowledge (VK) (i.e., receptive and productive) and morphological awareness (MA) are not well understood. This is particularly so for learners of a second language, and in particular Japanese ESL learners (JESLLs).
Therefore,
this study focussed on these aspects of VK and found that on tests of both VK and MA.
As predicted, the JESLLs demonstrated more knowledge of receptive than productive
vocabulary.
In addition, productive MA was positively related to both receptive and
productive VK for the JESLLs differing from the pattern observed for the native speakers (NSs) of English, whose receptive MA correlated with both types of VK.
Further-
more, the JESLLs were more adept at morphological segmentation than a comparison
group of NSs, a finding which highlights the influence of instruction in developing MA.
These findings are discussed in terms of considerations of both breadth and depth of VK
in relation to MA, a key aspect of many other linguistic skills (e.g., reading).
INTRODUCTION
In trying to better understand the nature of vocabulary knowledge (VK), researchers are
interested in both a) how many words learners know (i.e., breadth of vocabulary
knowledge), often indicated by their knowledge of form and meaning of lexical items;
and b) how well learners know particular words (i.e., depth), which entails various receptive and productive subcomponents of word knowledge. One essential subcomponent has been argued to be morphological awareness (MA), which includes knowledge
of inflectional and derivational forms of base words (Nation, 1990, 2001). Despite the
fact that MA plays an important role in the development of learners’ vocabulary
knowledge, together with literacy-related skills (e.g., reading and spelling) (e.g., Wang,
Cheng, & Chen, 2006), comparatively little research has really looked at the relationship between breadth and depth of VK in relation to MA. Specifically, we feel that
more work needs to be carried out to identify more precisely the relationship between
both receptive and productive VK and different aspects of MA, and in particular, the
nature of this relationship in second language (L2) learners.
The present study describes the nature of VK via Henriksen’s (1996, 1999) model
of vocabulary acquisition (reproduced as Figure 1), which represents three separate but
related continua: 1) partial-precise; 2) depth-of-knowledge; and 3) receptive-productive.
1
Henriksen’s model infers that the receptive-productive continuum concerns different
levels of control over and access to VK that learners possess, as demonstrated by their
performance on different kinds of tasks. The depth-of-knowledge continuum includes
various subcomponents of word knowledge (e.g., pronunciation, associations, syntactic
and morphological knowledge) and contributes to knowledge of word meaning, which
develops along the partial-precise continuum.
I. The partial-precise continuum;
II. The receptive-productive continuum
III. The depth-of-knowledge continuum
Figure 1. A model of vocabulary acquisition (Henriksen, 1996)
2
RECEPTIVE AND PRODUCTIVE VOCABULARY SIZE
As is often observed in first language (L1) learners, L2 learners, too, possess a larger
receptive vocabulary size (VS) than productive VS, thus representing a gap (e.g., Laufer,
1998; Laufer & Paribakht, 1998). There is emerging evidence adding more detail to
this prevailing notion.
Waring (1997), for instance, suggested that there was a reason-
able chance (64.5%) that upper-intermediate learners of English as a foreign language
(EFL) knew high-frequency words both receptively and productively.
Webb (2008),
using receptive (L2  L1) and productive (L1  L2) translation tests, found that when
their partial knowledge was considered, Japanese EFL learners possessed productive
knowledge of almost all the words (93%) that they knew receptively. 1
This led Webb
to suggest that explicit vocabulary teaching in the EFL context might contribute to the
balanced development of receptive and productive VS.
It appears that L2 learners’ re-
ceptive and productive VK of some L2 (high-frequency) words overlap and interact
with one another, moving along the continua of receptive-productive and precise-partial
dimensions, as captured well in the Henriksen model above.
This model is explored in
more detail below with reference to MA as an aspect related to depth of VK and its relationship with VS.
In this scoring system, learners’ incorrect spelling and grammatical forms were marked as correct
as long as their meaning was correctly indicated.
1
3
MORPHOLOGICAL AWARENESS
Morphological awareness (MA) refers to the ability to distinguish and manipulate the
structure of morphemes, the smallest meaning-bearing units in language (e.g., un- and
happy in unhappy), and includes knowledge of inflectional and derivational morphemes
(McBride-Chang, Wagner, Muse, Chow, & Shu, 2005).
Inflectional morphemes usu-
ally serve a grammatical function such as marking tense (walk  walked) or number
(cat  cats), and adding an inflectional suffix to a word stem does not alter the word’s
overall syntactic category (Katamba, 1993).
Derivational morphemes form words dif-
ferently (Koda, 2000): either by a) altering the syntactic category (i.e., class-changing
morphemes) (e.g., happy-happiness); or b) changing the meaning of the base without
changing the syntactic category (i.e., class-maintaining morphemes) (e.g., happy-unhappy).
The relationship between affixes and their base also has psycholinguistic aspects
(Marslen-Wilson, Tyler, Waksler, & Older, 1994).
Among these, the present study fo-
cuses on frequency (i.e., the number of words in which an affix occurs), productivity
(i.e., the degree to which an affix is used to form new words) and semantic transparency
(happiness (transparent); release (opaque)) since the combination of these factors is argued to influence the way in which morphologically complex words are processed in
4
the mental lexicon (Lowie, 2000) (see Marslen-Wilson, 2007 and Murphy, 2004 for
psycholinguistic accounts of this issue).
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MORPHOLOGICAL
AWARENESS AND VOCABULARY SIZE
Schmitt and Meara (1997) demonstrated that receptive and productive MA were each
positively related with receptive VS, although an increase in VS over time did not contribute to narrowing the gap between receptive and productive MA in Japanese EFL
learners.
This relationship could perhaps be explored in more detail by using a pro-
ductive measure of VS as well.
Schmitt and Meara also argue that Japanese learners
possess stronger awareness of inflectional suffixes than derivational affixes, due to the
idiosyncratic nature of the latter, as opposed to the rule-based nature of the former.
More recently, Schmitt and Zimmerman (2002) suggest that L2 learners undergo significant challenges in acquiring productive knowledge of derivational affixes (considering
the fact that even native speakers demonstrated imperfect productive knowledge of
these), and that attending to form through instruction might help enhance this
knowledge in L2 learners.
This pedagogical implication, as well as a similar sugges-
tion by Webb (2008) regarding VS (i.e., the potential role of explicit vocabulary teaching in the balanced development of receptive and productive VS), supports claims made
5
by SLA researchers about form-focused input in the L2 classroom (e.g., Doughty &
Williams, 1998). Taking into account the type of L2 instruction that learners receive
should, therefore, provide a basis for better understanding their developing VS and MA.
The present study explores the nature of the relationship between receptive and
productive VS and MA in the context of Japanese learners of English as an L2 (ESL).
This is a comparatively under-researched issue, yet investigating it contributes to obtaining a clearer picture of the nature of VK in L2.
In doing so, it also investigates to
what extent these learners’ receptive and productive VS converge or diverge across
words of differing frequencies.
Their depth of VK is examined in relation to MA, with
a consideration of morphological properties inherent in words such as frequency,
productivity and semantic transparency, as well as inflections and derivations.
METHODOLOGY
The present study was designed to answer the following specific questions:
(1) To what extent is receptive vocabulary size different from productive vocabulary
size among Japanese ESL learners and native speakers of English respectively?
a. If it is different, how do receptive and productive vocabulary size differ across
frequency levels between the two groups?
(2) Do these participants’ receptive and productive morphological awareness differ depending on the type of affixes included in the word?
6
a. Can it also be explained by the influence of frequency and productivity of affixes and semantic transparency?
(3) Is the relationship between morphological awareness and vocabulary size found for
these learners different from that for native speakers?
Participants
42 participants were involved in this study: 22 Japanese ESL learners (JESLLs) of intermediate proficiency at a language school in Oxford, UK (3 males and 19 females;
mean age = 28.8) and a comparison group of 20 adult native speakers (NSs) of English
in Oxfordshire and Cheshire (10 males and 10 females; mean age = 29.5).
Their
teachers informed us that they explicitly taught the JESLLs formal aspects of morphology regularly in their vocabulary classes, using various morphological tasks.
teachers used no morphological tasks in class during this study.
These
The JESLLs’ length of
residence in Oxford and years of learning English were, on average, 8.2 months (SD =
14.3) and 11.1 years (SD = 5.1) respectively.
Instruments
A short background questionnaire and four tasks were used in this study.
Two vocab-
ulary tasks were used, namely Schmitt, Schmitt and Clapham’s (2001) Vocabulary Levels Test (VLT) as a receptive measure of VS and Laufer and Nation’s (1995) productive
7
version of the Vocabulary Levels Test (PVLT) as a productive measure.
Both tests
consist of five levels of word frequency in English: the 2,000-word level; the
3,000-word level; Academic Vocabulary (AV)/University Word Level (UWL) (for the
PVLT); the 5,000-word level; and the 10,000-word level.
The VLT involves matching
a word with its correct definition from multiple choices.
There are 150 test items in
total (30 items at each frequency level). The PVLT, which has 90 test items in total,
involves producing correct word completions elicited in short sentences: 'He was riding
a bi
(bicycle)'.
Two additional tasks were a Word Segmentation (WS) task, as a receptive measure
of MA, and an Affix Elicitation (AE) task, as a productive measure. The WS task involves segmenting a word into morphological components, e.g., ' wondering  _____
(wonder ＋ing)'.
The AE task, modelled on Nation’s (2001, p. 100) morphological
task, involves filling in the blanks by producing appropriate affixed forms, using cues
provided in brackets, e.g., 'I went to the doctor for a _________ <consult> (consultation)'.
The sentences used were sampled from the British National Corpus and kept as
unambiguous as possible to avoid any confusion caused by syntax or semantics when
participants accessed their morphological knowledge.
Prefixes and suffixes in both morphological tasks were selected, based on the fol-
8
lowing levels of English affixes (Bauer & Nation, 1993):
Level 2
Inflectional suffixes
Level 3
The most frequent and regular derivational affixes
Level 4
Frequent orthographically regular affixes
Level 5
Regular but infrequent affixes
Level 6
Frequent but irregular affixes
Level 7
Classical roots and affixes
Derivational affixes chosen from this list were further classified into
class-maintaining and class-changing derivational affixes, a distinction that is lacking in
this list. The frequency of the target affixed items was checked with data by Francis
and Kučera (1982). The 34 target items appearing on the AE task were designed to
elicit 10 inflectional suffixes, 12 class-maintaining and 12 class-changing derivational
affixes.
Included in the 34 target items on the WS task were a total of 50 target affixes
to be identified through segmentation: 10 inflectional suffixes, 17 class-maintaining and
23 class-changing derivational affixes.
The total sum of target affixes differs from
that of the target items since the former reflects a number of affixes included in each
target item, which varies across items, depending on their internal morphological complexities, such as unkind (one prefix) and irregularly (two affixes).
The target deriva-
tional forms in both tasks consisted of 6 nouns, 6 verbs, 6 adjectives, and 6 adverbs.
A classification of the target affixes into Bauer and Nation’s levels is given in Table 1.
9
Table 1. The number of affixes included according to Bauer and Nation’s (1993) levels
Tasks
WS
AE
Level 2
10
10
Level 3
9
5
Level 4
Level 5
8
4
9
9
Level 6
Level 7
8
2
6
4
Procedure
All tasks were administered by the researcher.
A short background questionnaire and
the four tasks were group-administered to the JESLLs at their language school.
All the
tasks were completed within two weeks, with two sessions (the PVLT and VLT) held on
the same day and the other two sessions (the AE and WS tasks) held a week later. The
NSs completed the four tasks in two sessions (the PVLT and VLT in one session and the
AE and WS tasks in the other) in two groups (one group in Oxfordshire and the other in
Cheshire). At the beginning of each session, participants received a brief explanation
of the tasks, followed by a few examples from the researcher in Japanese for the
JESLLs and in English for the NSs. There was no time limit on any of the tasks.
These morphological tasks were pilot-tested prior to the data collection with 8
JESLLs and 6 NSs, none of whom were involved in the actual study.
As a result,
modification was made, especially by way of making clearer the semantics and syntax
of some of the sentences appearing on the AE task.
10
RESULTS
The participants’ responses to the PVLT and VLT were scored as either correct or incorrect.
In the PVLT, as in Laufer (1998), responses expressed in the incorrect gram-
matical form (e.g., debt for debts) or spelling (e.g., suppliment for supplement) were
marked as correct if their meaning was correctly indicated.
As in Webb (2008), we
employed two scoring systems for the WS task: crude and sensitive.
In the crude
scoring system, the participants’ responses were marked as either correct or incorrect,
compared against responses from two NS judges with expertise in Applied Linguistics.
In the sensitive scoring system, one point was awarded to each affix correctly identified
through segmentation.
For example, the segmentation 'irregular + ly' was awarded one
point due to the correct identification of the derivational suffix -ly (hence two points for
'ir + regular + ly').
Only the strict scoring system applied to the AE task, due to the
availability of cues as a prompt to elicit target items.
Vocabulary tasks
The means and standard deviations for the VLT and PVLT scores are presented in Table
2. The total scores on both tasks were converted into percentages to allow for comparisons across both tests to be made.
The VLT data were analysed using an analysis
11
Table 2. Means and standard deviations for scores on the VLT and PVLT
JESLLs (n=22)
Frequency levels
VLT
Mean SD
NSs (n=20)
PVLT
Mean SD
VLT
Mean SD
PVLT
Mean SD
2,000
3,000
AV/UWL
5,000
26.1
22
20.6
16.8
3.67
5.1
6.34
5.76
13
8.27
7.45
3
2.65
4.31
3.69
2.7
29.8
29.8
29.2
29.6
0.55
0.91
1.55
0.99
18
17.8
17.5
17.6
0
0.55
0.76
0.83
10,000
Total (%)
8
62.4
3.95
14.67
0.2
35.4
0.5
13.48
29.6
98.6
1
2.1
16.3
96.7
2.24
4.2
Note. A maximum score at each frequency level was 30 for the VLT and 18 for the PVLT.
of variance (ANOVA) with one repeated-measures variable (Word Category:
2,000-word, 3,000-word, Academic Vocabulary (AV), 5,000-word, and 10,000-word
levels), and one between-subjects variable (Group: JESLLs and NSs).
There was a main effect of word category, F(4, 160) =110.54, p < .001, and group,
F(1, 40) = 119.25, p < .001.
Furthermore, a significant Group × Word Category inter-
action was found, F(4, 160) = 107.13, p < .001.
The NSs’ performance was at a ceil-
ing across frequency levels, as manifested by almost perfect (mean) scores achieved
across the frequency levels (see Table 2). As for the JESLLs’ performance, while their
mean scores on the 3,000-word level and AV did not differ significantly, p >.05., the
second smallest difference in the means, which lay between the AV and 5,000-word level, reached statistical significance, t(21) = 4.91, p < .001. One can, therefore, extrapolate that the JESLLs’ performance significantly dropped with decreasing frequency (ex12
cept between the 3,000-word level and AV).
A similar ANOVA was conducted with the PVLT data. A main effect of word
category, F(4, 160) = 118.70, p < .001, and group, F(1, 40) = 379.65, p < .001 was observed. Moreover, there was a significant Group × Word Category interaction, F(4,
160) = 74.95, p < .001.
When looking only at the JESLL data, as observed in the VLT,
their VS dropped as the frequency level decreased, except between the 3,000-word level
and UWL, where their mean scores did not differ significantly, p > .05.
The NSs’ per-
formance, in contrast, reached ceiling at all frequency levels but the 10,000-word level,
as manifested by almost perfect (mean) scores achieved at all these four frequency levels (see Table 2).
The difference between the JESLLs’ total scores on the VLT and
PVLT reached statistical significance, t(21) = 22.0, p < .001, suggesting that their receptive VS was significantly larger than their productive VS.
The NSs’ receptive VS, too,
was significantly larger than their productive VS, t(19) = 2.41, p < .05.
Pearson correlations were calculated and receptive VS strongly correlated with
productive VS for the JESLLs, r = .92, p < .001.
A weaker, but still significant corre-
lation was found for the NSs, r = .56, p < .001.
Therefore, for both groups of partici-
pants, as scores on the receptive measure increased, scores on the productive measure
also increased, illustrating a positive relationship between receptive and productive VS.
13
Morphological tasks
The data from the WS task (sensitive scores, a sum of scores awarded to each affix type)
were analysed using an ANOVA with one repeated-measures variable (Affix Type: inflectional suffixes, class-maintaining and class-changing affixes) and one between-subjects variable (Group: JESLLs and NSs).
A main effect of affix type, F(2, 80) = 22.43, p < .001, and group, F(1, 40) = 14.29,
p < .01 was observed.
There was a significant Group × Affix Type interaction, F(2,
80) = 7.92, p < .01. These effects are shown in Figure 2.
The JESLLs scored most
highly on inflectional suffixes and performed significantly better on class-maintaining
affixes than class-changing affixes, t(21) = 5.2, p < .001.
Their mean scores on inflec-
tional suffixes and class-maintaining affixes did not differ significantly, p > .05.
Figure 2. Mean percentage of correct responses to the WS task
14
The
NSs, in contrast, performed highly only on class-maintaining affixes. No significant
difference was found between the means for inflectional suffixes and class-changing
affixes p > .05.
When comparing scores between the groups, independent-samples
t-tests indicated that the JESLLs performed significantly better on the class-changing affixes than did the NSs, t(40) = 3.01, p < .01, whereas no significant between-subject difference
was found for the class-maintaining affixes, p >.05. One can extrapolate from this difference that the larger between-subject difference in the means for the inflectional suffixes was
significant, too.
The Cronbach Alpha reliability coefficient for this task was .89.
A similar ANOVA was conducted with data from the AE task. There was a main
effect of affix type, F(2, 80) = 33.32, p < .001, and group, F(1, 40) = 166.11, p < .001.
Furthermore, a significant Group × Affix Type interaction was found, F(2, 80) = 29.94,
p < .001.
These effects are illustrated in Figure 3.
The NSs scored highly on inflec-
tional suffixes and class-changing affixes (no significant differences in the means between these types of affixes, p > .05), contrasting with their performance on the WS task.
The NSs performed significantly better on class-changing affixes than class-maintaining
affixes, t(19) = 2.91, p < .01, whereas their mean scores did not differ significantly between
inflectional suffixes and class-maintaining affixes, p > .05.
15
The JESLLs performed well
Figure 3. Mean percentage of correct responses to the AE task
only on inflectional suffixes.
Their mean scores on inflectional suffixes were signifi-
cantly higher than those on class-maintaining affixes, t(21) = 7.75, p < .01.
The dif-
ference in the means between class-maintaining and class-changing affixes did not
reach statistical significance, p > .05.
The smallest between-subject difference lay in the
means for the inflectional suffixes and this difference reached statistical significance, t(40)
= －5.62, p < .001.
Hence, one can extrapolate that the NSs significantly outperformed
the JESLL on the other affix types as well.
The Cronbach Alpha reliability coefficient
for this task was high at .96.
Influence of frequency, productivity and semantic transparency
Participants’ responses to the WS and AE tasks were analysed more qualitatively to explore the influence of frequency, productivity and semantic transparency on them (see
16
table 1 for a classification of test items into Bauer and Nation’s (1993) levels of affixes).
On the WS task, both groups received full marks in the two scoring systems on the
following items: disorder (level 7), enable (level 5), rewrite (level 6) and childhood
(level 5). Although these items differ in terms of frequency and productivity (both decrease as the level increases), they can all be considered semantically transparent in
terms of the relationship between the affixes and their base.
In comparison to this fa-
cilitative influence of semantic transparency, the influence of frequency and productivity on participants’ performance was less consistent.
Despite having received instruc-
tions on the task together with examples at the beginning of the testing session, the NSs
seem to have still been influenced more by phonological properties of test items, as indicated by their syllabic segmentation (e.g., 'won + der + ing', 'con + ven + tion', and 'dis
+ sim + i + lar'), whereas the JESLLs typically segmented items into morphological
components across levels (e.g., 'wonder + ing' (level 2), 'conven + tion' (level 7), and
'dis+ similar' (level 5)).
Individual responses to the AE task, too, render the influence of frequency and
productivity unclear since they lacked a uniformly decreasing relationship across levels.
The JESLLs provided the derivational form unfortunately (un level 3) more correctly
than irrelevant (ir- level 5).
On the other hand, a different tendency in responses was
17
observed within the same frequency and productivity level (e.g., -hood and -ent at level
5): the former exhibited only naturally-occurring forms as answers (neighbourhood or
neighborhood), whereas the latter triggered various non-existing forms (e.g., absorbly
and absorbate). The NSs performed highly regardless of level, which offers little insight into the influence of frequency and productivity.
Semantic transparency was not
examined here since the bases of target morphological items were provided as cues in
the AE task.
It should be noted that the above analyses of both tasks are based on a
small number of affixes at each level, thus only providing a limited picture of participants’ MA in terms of frequency, productivity and semantic transparency.
Vocabulary size and morphological awareness
Productive MA correlated highly with both receptive (r =.84, p < .001) and productive
VS (r =.83, p < .001) among the JESLLs.
In contrast, it was receptive MA (only sen-
sitive scores) that moderately correlated with the NSs’ receptive (r =.46, p < .05) and
productive VS (r =.58, p < .01).
Regression analyses were conducted to examine the
extent to which MA could be accounted for by receptive and productive VS.
As for
the JESLLs, these two types of VS explained 73% (F(2, 19) = 25.8, p < .001) of the
variance in their productive MA.
Among the NSs, the two types of VS explained 36%
18
(F(2, 17) = 4.79, p < .05) of the variance in their receptive MA.
DISCUSSION
Although the results indicated, as predicted, that the JESLLs’ receptive VS was significantly larger than their productive VS, the gap narrowed at the 2,000-word level, where
the ratio of both types of VS was reasonably high (72%).
The percentage lowered with
decreasing frequency, which is in line with Waring (1997) and Webb (2008).
The pos-
itive correlation between the JESLLs’ receptive and productive VS, together with the
relatively high ratio between receptive and productive size for high-frequency words,
support the notion that receptive and productive vocabulary knowledge (VK) overlap
and interact considerably with one another. This can best be viewed as the movement
of receptive and productive vocabularies along a continuum.
Consistent with Schmitt and Meara (1997), the JESLLs demonstrated stronger
awareness of inflectional morphology than derivational morphology on both morphological tasks, perhaps due to its rule-based nature, in comparison to the idiosyncratic
nature of derivational morphology. Such a tendency was not observed among the NSs.
Semantic transparency appears to have been somewhat indicative of participants’ performance on the WS task, suggesting that morphological components are likely to be
19
recognised if the relationship between affixes and their base is semantically transparent.
Neither frequency nor productivity accounted for the participants’ performance on the
WS or AE task.
The JESLLs’ lower performance on the AE task could be explained
by a heavy cognitive demand placed on the JESLLs when accessing their productive
morphological knowledge (see Figure 1).
Thus, the participants’ performance on both
tasks was perhaps largely an artefact of the nature of the tasks as well as, for the JESLLs,
of affix types. An additional factor underlying the participants’ performance could be
their degree of metalinguistic awareness. The JESLLs’ strong awareness of morphological segments, as manifested on the WS task, could be related to their regular exposure to explicit instruction about inflectional and derivational morphemes in their L2
vocabulary classes.
This notion is clearly consistent with claims about form-focused
instruction in L2 classrooms.
However, the fact that the JESLLs, despite having re-
ceived explicit instruction on formal aspects of morphology, did not do as well on the
AE task, suggests that instruction must be targeted to specific skills and knowledge (receptive/productive). This area would indeed profit from well-considered research on
the role that instruction can play on developing receptive and productive morphological
knowledge.
The relationship between MA and VS contrasted across the two groups: productive
20
MA was positively associated with the JESLLs’ receptive and productive VS, whereas
receptive MA (sensitive scores) was positively related to the NSs’ receptive and productive VS.
The lack of relationship for the NSs with their crude scores suggests that ac-
tivating (explicit) knowledge of morphological segments probably does not coincide
with the way in which the NSs use/recognise their L1 lexical items. The relationship
for the JESLLs can be visualised via Henriksen’s model (Figure 1): productive MA as
part of depth of vocabulary knowledge, which perhaps requires the level of complete
productive control in a number of contexts, can contribute to the development of receptive and productive knowledge of form and meaning of L2 lexical items (i.e., breadth).
The present study thus demonstrated the interrelatedness of breadth (VS) and depth of
VK in relation to MA, which are both subcomponents essential for the development of
vocabulary (and general linguistic) knowledge.
CONCLUSION
The present study illuminated a contrasting relationship between receptive and productive vocabulary size and morphological awareness between the JESLLs and NSs.
One
could argue that the JESLLs’ developing L2 mental lexicon is not simply a less developed version of the L1 mental lexicon but there might be some qualitative differences in
the organisation of L1 and L2 mental lexicons.
21
Our findings are consistent with the
notion that the L2 mental lexicon is characterised by higher degrees of metalinguistic
awareness that includes explicit knowledge of morphological segments.
Some limita-
tions should be noted in this study, particularly regarding its small sample size, the use
of American English frequency data (Francis & Kučera, 1982) for the JESLLs in the
UK, and the limited vocabulary profile envisaged via the VLT and PVLT.
Further
work that remedies these limitations should be developed for a more comprehensive
understanding of the nature of morphological awareness and its relationship with different aspects of vocabulary knowledge.
22
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