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. September 12, 2016.
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
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 formsLow 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
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
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
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)