Experimental Investigation Into Auditory Implicit Memory Of Words Of English As Foreign A Language

EFL(English as a foreign language) instruction and research have attached great importance to the role of explicit memory in EFL learning. However, explicit teaching and explicit memory usually fail to enable EFL learners to retrieve the lexical representations in their mental lexicon. Research has demonstrated that lexical forms(phonology and typography), part of speech and collocations of EFL words can be learned implicitly(Ellis, 1994). Particularly, the phonological representations of EFL words are constructed implicitly. Consequently, it is of considerable necessity to investigate the implicit memory of EFL words and unravel its working mechanism and contributing factors so that proper measures could be taken to eventually enhance the magnitude of the lexical implicit memory of EFL learners and contribute to their acquisition of EFL words.The present study addresses two major questions: 1) Can Chinese English learners use the same cognitive mechanism of auditory priming to construct and retrieve phonological representations in both their mother language and English? 2) How do voice specificity, level of processing and mode of presentation affect the magnitude of the auditory implicit memory of EFL words? To investigate into these questions, the researcher recruited 90 college freshmen to participate in 4 experiments.First, the researcher administered a personal information survey, an L1 and EFL competence investigation and an EFL English speaking test. Among the 90 subjects, 8 are male and 82 are female. Their mean age is 18.63(SD=.71). On average, the subjects had learnt English for 11.23 years(SD=2.2) by the time of the study and they averaged 8.31 points(SD=.67) in the English speaking test with a full score of 10 points. Then 30 subjects are randomly assigned to Experiment 1 and Experiment 2, leaving the other 60 subjects for Experiment 3 and Experiment 4.In terms of experimental materials, the target words are rigorously controlled for their frequency and familiarity. All the target words in the study are high frequency words to ensure that the subjects will not have any difficulty repeating them and that they will not access their semantic representations during repetition. Moreover, only notional words are chosen, since functional words are limited in number and relatively high in frequency, which may trigger strategic processing and contaminate the results of the experiments. Finally, the number of word syllable is also controlled. Monosyllabic words, bisyllabic words and polysyllabic words are balancedly included to make each set of target words more representative.On experimental design, a 2*2 within-subject design is adopted for Experiment 1 and Experiment 2. A 3*2 mixed factors design and a 2*2 mixed factors design are adopted for Experiment 3 and Experiment 4 respectively. In Experiment 1, the independent variables are language and word repeatedness. In Experiment 2, the independent variables are speaker’s pronunciation and word repeatedness. In Experiment 3, the independent variables are processing level and word repeatedness. In Experiment 4, the independent variables are mode of word presentation and word repeatedness. The dependent variable in all experiments is the reaction time(RT) and reaction accuracy for the target words.The study adopts a priming paradigm and a repetition task. All experiments consist of three phases, i.e. a study phase, a distractor task and a test phase. In the study phase(except Experiment 3 and the context group in Experiment 4), the subjects listen to target words auditorily presented at an interval of 3000ms(milisecond) and are not expected to make any response. Then in the distractor task, the subjects complete 10 simple arithmetic sums so as to eliminate the recency effect. Finally, in the test phase, the subjects listen to target words auditorily presented at an interval of 4000 ms and repeat each word as promptly and accurately as possible after they hear it.Finally, in terms of statistical analysis, a repeated measures ANOVA, t-tests and Pearson correlational analysis are used. The major findings of the study are listed as the following: 1. Auditory priming in an EFL demonstrates the property of stimulus-specificity, i.e. the subjects use auditory priming, a cognitive mechanism to encode and represent the specific contextual details of the target words. 2. Auditory priming in an EFL occurs automatically and rapidly. In the four experiments, even if the subjects only hear the target words once, the experience could contribute subsequent reprocessing of the same words. 3. Auditory priming functions differently in L1 and EFL. The results from Experiment 1 suggest that the magnitude of auditory priming is greater in the subjects’ L1 than in their EFL. 4. Auditory priming in an EFL is subject to the influence of processing levels. The results from Experiment 3 indicate that shallow processing of EFL words contribute more to the magnitude of auditory priming than deep processing. 5. Auditory priming in an EFL is affected by the means of word presentation. Results from Experiment 4 show that listening to words isolatedly presented leads to a more robust auditory priming effect than listening to words presented in a context. 6. The magnitude of auditory priming effects is positively correlated with the learners’ length of English learning, score of the English test in the college entrance exam, overall English level, English reading competence, overall Chinese level, Chinese listening competence, Chinese pronunciation competence, mastery of the target words and target word familiarity. However, the correlation is unstable.The present study provides empirical data for the construction of a theoretical model which can account for the priming effects both in L1 and EFL. It also lends support to Focus on Form(Long & Robinson, 1998), Law of Exercise(Thorndike, 1996) and the Input Hypothesis(Krashen, 1985). Furthermore development was made to the Input Hypothesis. In addition, approaches to enhance the auditory priming effects of EFL English learners are offered, which bears pedagogical implication. Finally, the study is of referential value to other psycholinguistic studies adopting reaction time as an indicator.