Sponsor
This work was supported by Zhejiang Philosophy and Social Sciences Planning Office under Grant 18NDJC235YB.
Published In
World Journal of English Language
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
6-24-2020
Subjects
English language -- Study and teaching (Higher) -- Foreign speakers -- Case studies, Vocabulary -- Study and teaching (Higher) -- Case studies, Vocabulary -- Word frequency -- Case studies, Second language acquisition -- Case studies
Abstract
Research in embodied cognition suggests that perceptual simulation may play a role in language comprehension. In this study we use a combination of experimental and qualitative research to explore the potential of simulation exercises to improve acquisition of esoteric literary English vocabulary by English majors at a Chinese University. Through quantitative analysis of the data from one pre-test and two post-tests of the experimental and control groups, and qualitative examination of the student feedback collected from an open-ended survey and face-to-face interviews, we find that most of the students in both conditions have simulations of the learned words whether based on self-determined Chinese trigger words or given English language prompts to them, and skilled language learners intuitively adopt perceptual simulations. The research findings give teachers some enlightenment on the pedagogical strategies that might encourage less proficient learners to incorporate perceptual simulations in their study habits.
Rights
Copyright 2020 The Authors.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Locate the Document
DOI
10.5430/wjel.v10n2p18
Persistent Identifier
https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/36543
Citation Details
ZHU, Min; RITCHIE, L. David. The Role of Perceptual Simulation in L2 Vocabulary Acquisition. World Journal of English Language, [S.l.], v. 10, n. 2, p. p18, June 2020.