title: Proficiency and sentence constraint effects on second language word learning.
abstract: This paper presents an experiment that investigated the effects of L2 proficiency and sentence constraint on semantic processing of unknown L2 words (pseudowords). All participants were Chinese native speakers who learned English as a second language. In the experiment, we used a whole sentence presentation paradigm with a delayed semantic relatedness judgment task. Both higher and lower-proficiency L2 learners could make use of the high-constraint sentence context to judge the meaning of novel pseudowords, and higher-proficiency L2 learners outperformed lower-proficiency L2 learners in all conditions. These results demonstrate that both L2 proficiency and sentence constraint affect subsequent word learning among second language learners. We extended L2 word learning into a sentence context, replicated the sentence constraint effects previously found among native speakers, and found proficiency effects in L2 word learning.
authors.affiliation: Beijing Key Laboratory of Applied Experimental Psychology, School of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China; State Key Lab of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China; School of Education, The Open University of China, Beijing 100039, China.
authors.forename: Tengfei
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.affiliation: Beijing Key Laboratory of Applied Experimental Psychology, School of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China; State Key Lab of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China. Electronic address: Chenbg@bnu.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Baoguo
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: State Key Lab of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China.
authors.forename: Chunming
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.affiliation: Children's Learning Institute, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, United States.
authors.forename: Susan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Dunlap
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D006801:Humans; D007858:Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D019303:Multilingualism; D011578:Psycholinguistics; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Proficiency; Second language; Sentence constraint; Word learning