An Investigation Of The Role Of Cognitive Motivation In EFL Learners’ Construal Of English Denominal Verbs

Prior studies on second language vocabulary acquisition did not pay sufficient attention to the role of motivation which could provide explanation to the meaning-meaning connection, form-meaning connection, and form-form connection instantiated in linguistic expressions. In the present study, English denominal verbs are chosen as the subject of study to bridge the gap between second language vocabulary learning and motivation study with a special focus on the role of cognitive motivation in EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners’construal of English denominal verbs. Research on English denominal verbs in the literature tended to be confined to a description and discovering of rules of derivation. It was after the advent of Cognitive Linguistics that researchers were able to investigate how human mind functioned in construing this special type of linguistic phenomenon. Only very limited efforts have been made to investigate the difficulties that EFL learners would encounter in construing English denominal verbs in the paradigm known as Applied Cognitive Linguistics (ACL).The present study made exploratory attempts to rectify problems concerning EFL learners’construal of English denominal verbs by adopting mixed methods. Drawing on theories of Cognitive Grammar (Langacker,1987a,1991), and conceptual metaphor and metonymy (Kovecses&Radden,1998; Lakoff,1987; Lakoff&Johnson,1980; Panther,2006; Panther&Radden,1999; Radden&Kovecses,2007), this study aimed at exploring the dynamic meaning construal process of English denominal verbs by language users. Denominal verbs were recategorized according to the metonymic relationship between the parent noun and the whole Action/Motion ICM involved in the noun-to-verb conversion. Its implied grammatical meaning was also analyzed in line with Cognitive Grammar theory. In addition, the cognitive motivation driven by metonymy (including grammatical metonymy and zone activation) and metonymy-metaphor continuum was considered to be the major factor capable of constructing the underlying meaning-meaning connection. The interaction between contextual clues, domain-based knowledge and cognitive motivation in the meaning construal process was explored to a certain extent. It is believed that these theoretical underpinnings would enable us to explore how Chinese EFL learners might process English denominal verbs.The empirical part of this study has highlighted two issues that are of paramount significance in EFL learners" construal of English denominal verbs: (1) In what ways does the EFL learners’ construal of English denominal verbs differ from the native English speakers’?(2) How does the cognitive motivation affect the EFL learners’construal of English denominal verbs?The empirical part of this study was conducted in the form of a vocabulary test and stimulated recall. Two groups of participants,25advanced Chinese EFL learners and25native English speakers, were recruited for the study. Twenty English denominal verbs were selected in the vocabulary test with an aim to elicit quantitative and qualitative data about the participants’knowledge of English denominal verbs. The participants were asked to write down the meaning of each denominal verb in the given context and rate their familiarity and perceived difficulty. Each participant was asked to do a post-test stimulated recall for the purpose of analyzing their thoughts during the task of construing English denominal verbs. The vocabulary test and the stimulated recall in the empirical part yielded both quantitative and qualitative data. The quantitative data analysis was conducted with the software SPSS17.0to verify if the results could obtain statistical significance. The qualitative data, with the participants’ verbal reports in particular, was coded, analyzed, and quantified with the software NVivo8in order to enhance the validity and reliability of the data analysis. Both types of data were combined to triangulate the findings.The results revealed noteworthy findings about the EFL learners’ construal of English denominal verbs. Regarding research question (1), it was found that the native English speakers outperformed significantly the EFL learners in the vocabulary test. The EFL learners and the native English speakers used similar sources of clues in construing English denominal verbs but differed mainly in the use of the context and the parent noun. For the EFL learners, their unfamiliarity with the parent noun forced them to use more frequently contextual clues to inference the meaning of the targeted items. They tended to use more general vocabulary learning strategies in the guessing process. Their construal pattern demonstrated that they were less aware of the cognitive motivation associating the denominal verbs and the parent noun. For the part of the native English speakers, they would focus first on the information generated by the parent noun and deploy more frequently cognitive-motivation-related strategies such as metonymic and metaphorical mappings. The degree of conventionalization of the targeted items was an important factor that influenced their construal patterns. Hence understanding the context weighed much more for the EFL learners than the native English speakers. If the EFL learners did know the meaning of the parent noun, they would use both the parent noun and the context for the task of construal. During this process, they tried to use cognitive mappings such as grammatical metonymy, zone activation, and metaphorical mappings, but it seemed to be hard for them to make native-like associations. How to use cognitive motivation in a correct way was found to be one of the most immense difficulties for the EFL learners.This finding was vital to the probe into research question (2) about the role of cognitive motivation. The metonymic motivation of grammatical metonymy and zone activation were found to be more difficult for the EFL learners to employ. Their associations between the targeted items and a particular ICM or active zone deviated from the native speakers". This problem was attributed to their different patterns of conceptualization entrenched in their mind. Since the EFL learners could not reach the entrenched association of certain English denominal verbs, they had to hypothesize a probable one and would possibly end up with an incorrect construed meaning. The cognitive principle of perceptual salience, which was one of the influential factors on the choice of metonymy, seemed to have a direct relation with the results of the present study. Although the EFL learners were not unfamiliar with the metonymic relationship of PART FOR WHOLE and WHOLE FOR PART represented by the grammatical metonymy and zone activation underlying English denominal verbs, they might encounter less frequently similar usages of noun-to-verb conversion in their LI. Without sufficient exposure to certain metonymic usages which should have been entrenched for reasonable comprehension, it would be extremely hard for the EFL learners to use the metonymic motivation in a correct way. When it comes to the metaphorical motivation, two characteristics were found in the EFL learners’ performance. The first was that the EFL learners" use of the metaphorical motivation was based on their understanding of the metonymic motivation triggered by contextual clues. This finding confirmed our hypothesis that metonymy was a more fundamental cognitive motivation underlying denominal verbs. The second characteristic was that the EFL learners’L1could have both positive and negative transfer on their use of the metaphorical motivation. The metonymic motivation seemed to work more on the cognitive level to provide literal meaning while the metaphorical motivation more on the linguistic level to provide specific figurative meaning. Therefore, the EFL learners’ use of the metaphorical motivation was easily subject to L1transfer. In addition, domain-based knowledge such as encyclopedic knowledge, culture-specific knowledge, and embodiment could also interact with the cognitive motivation and contribute to the blending of meanings in denominal verbs. In some cases, the retrieval of certain domain-based knowledge could provide additional input to promote the activation of ICM and active zone through metonymic motivation. In other cases, domain-based knowledge seemed indispensible to their attempt at inference.This study demonstrated how theories of Cognitive Linguistics could be applied to the field of second language acquisition from the perspective of cognitive motivation. In doing so, we are able to develop the line of ACL research to enhance L2learners’ vocabulary acquisition and promoting their learning in a more "motivated" way.