Cumulative Learning of Foreign Words, Article Review Example

This article highlights the inherent effect of acquiring some words later than others. The title of the article highlights the study undertaken by the authors. It highlights the use of foreign language to test their theory.

Research Question

The research is based on the question does the age of acquisition affect the effective processing in lexical and semantic tasks? This research aims at verifying that early acquired words are used more efficiently and effectively as opposed to those that are acquired late.

Authors

The article’s authors have considerable experience on the subject of bilingualism. All of the authors are in the field of psychology in Swansea University, Universidad de Murcia, Bangor University and The University of York. Cristina Izura, Elizabeth Agallou and Victoria Wright are from the department of psychology in Swansea University. Miguel Perez and Javoer Martin are from the Universidad de Murcia, Hans Stadthagen-González from Bangor University and Andrew W. Ellis from the University of York.

Participants

The research by the authors employed the use of a randomly selected but centralized sample. Participants mainly came from the student and staff bodies of Swansea University. The first experiment had a total of 50 participants, with 50% completing the full test process. The second test had a total of 36 participants with 26 completing the test procedure. The final experiment involved a total of 24 students, all of which completing the testing process.

Setting

The three tests were conducted in two different locations. The first two tests were conducted in the University of Swansea where all the participants were English native speaking individuals. The final test was conducted in the University of Murcia, in Spain. The final test involved Spanish-native speaking individuals with little to no experience in English.

Research Problem

The authors focus on the impact that the age of acquisition of particular words affects a user’s lexical and semantic uses of the words. This problem accesses the difficulty or ease with which learners can effectively use words acquired later in the learning process of a new language as compared to those learned earlier.

Method

The authors use three experiments to test their theory. These experiments employed a general design that included the use of 7 to 9 learning sessions within 3 weeks teaching monolingual English speakers certain words in the Spanish language. Participants were introduced to an early set of words in the first two sessions with the late set of words introduced once the participants had considerable comprehension of these words. The authors employ a varied approach introducing the early set of words at the beginning and/or at the end of training for the late sets of words. The final experiment is set in the Spain, where the participants were Spanish-native speaking individuals. They went through test similar to those conducted in experiment 1 and experiment 2.

Results

The researchers realize uniform and conclusive results relative to their theory. Participants’ effective use of words was directly proportional to how many times they have been exposed to the word. The age of acquisition considerably affected the speed of use and the lexical decision making process. Authors found that words that were introduced earlier were used more often with the participants drawing reference from this word in order to learn the late set of words.