An Experimental Study On Word Length Effect In English Vocabulary Memory

Vocabulary acquisition in language learning needs good memory. That is one of the reasons why language learning and memory has long been the core concern in the field of psycholinguistics. Memory can be divided into sensory memory, working memory and long-term memory and it was in the study of the functions of working memory that psycholinguists found the existence of Word Length Effect, which indicates that long words are more difficult to recall than short words. Theories used to explain the Word Length Effect in working memory include the Working Memory Model, the Feature Model, the Integration Theory, and the CCPP Theory. In 2007, Tehan and Tolan applied the Word Length Effect research into the long-term memory scope for the first time, they not only found the existence of Reverse Word Length Effect, but also put forward the "Item-order Trade-off theory, thus expand the scope of Word-Length-Effect research. Memorization of English words is the toughest task for Chinese learners of English, but few domestic studies have been conducted to examine the role of Word Length Effect in English vocabulary memory and even fewer to probe this effect in long-term memory. Therefore, the present research is aimed at exploration of Word Length Effect in English vocabulary memory.In this research, thirty graduate students from College of Foreign Studies in Guangxi Normal University were selected as the experiment sample and Tehan and Tolan's experimental paradigm is adapted and used to research English Word Length Effect on the part of Chinese learners of English. The research questions include:1) Does the Word Length Effect exist in the English word recollection? 2) Is the word memory affected by the alternate allocation of the long and the short words in the wordlists? 3) Does the articulation suppression elicit Word Length Effect? Is that result influenced by age and gender? 4) In the dual task of "item and order" test, is there still a Word Length Effect? In order to analyze the data collected and generalize the findings from the sample to the population represented by it, SPSS 16.0 is used to make inferential statistics so as to guarantee its internal and external validity of the present study.Based on the research questions, four experiments are carried out. Experiment 1 involves the immediate serial item order recall test on long wordlist and short wordlist presented respectively; Experiment 2 uses the free item recall test for the mixed wordlists; Experiment 3 adopts the delayed free item recall under articulation suppression; and Experiment 4 provides both the delayed serial item free recall test and the immediate serial item order recall test.The present researcher has gained the following findings:1) Word Length Effect instead of Reverse Word Length Effect exists among Chinese learners of English. Its existence is found in different testing tasks, including the immediate serial item order recall test, the articulation suppression recall test and the dual task recall test. This result shows long English words are more difficult to memorize than short ones and therefore supports the Feature Model and the "Item-order Trade-off theory in their explanation of Word Length Effect as it testifies the limited capacity of phonological store and memory capacity for long words, and proves that word memorization decay with the time leads to oblivion of more long words than short words. 2) The word memory is affected by the alternate allocation of the long and short words in different wordlists; 3) Age and gender do not elicit significant difference in Word Length Effect under the condition of articulation suppression.4) The duel task intervention affects word retrieval in long-term memory. Besides, the interview made subsequently displays that adopting multiple word memory strategies is helpful for the recollection of both short and long words.There are seven parts in the current experimental research:Chapter 1 is the introduction of the present research, including the researching background, purposes and questions. Chapter 2 is the literature review for Word Length Effect researches both at home and abroad. Chapter 3 is the theoretical foundations for the present thesis, including the theories on memory, working memory and long term memory. Additionally, the contemporary and dominating theories and models on Word Length Effect are introduced in Chapter 3. Chapter 4 described the design for each of the four experiments made in this research, including the researching method, purpose, subjects, materials, and the data collecting instruments. Chapter 5 shows the results of the four experiments in tables, together with explanations of the data in them. Chapter 6 discusses the result of the present research based on the theoretical models and previous studies. Chapter 7 involves a brief conclusion, the implication and the limitation of the present study.