Effects Of L2 Productive Word Knowledge,Field Of Study And Gender On Linguistic Creativity

Linguistic creativity has been an active research topic in recent years, which attracts great attention in the fields of both creative education and second language acquisition. Researchers have investigated the influences of different factors on linguistic creativity. However, there is a lack of consensus as regards the main effects of factors on linguistic creativity. Furthermore, few studies have been conducted on the effects of multi-factors on linguistic creativity. Therefore, the present study is conducted to investigate the effects of L2 productive word knowledge, field of study and gender on linguistic creativity. There are two research questions:1. Are there any main effects of L2 productive word knowledge, field of study and gender on linguistic creativity?2. Are there any interaction effects among L2 productive word knowledge, field of study and gender on linguistic creativity?The current study adopted a 2 (L2 productive word knowledge) X 2 (field of study) X 2 (gender) between subjects ANOVA design. L2 productive word knowledge was divided into two levels:high and low. The L2 productive word knowledge test employed in the present study was the Picture Naming Test (PNT, Kharkhurin,2005) with 120 pictures of simple objects, the subjects were required to name the objects in the pictures one by one. The linguistic creativity test used here was the Abbreviated Torrance Test for Adults (ATTA) (Torrance,1966). Three activities were included in this test, respectively, problem identification, picture completion and picture construction.The subjects were 240 third-year undergraduates from both arts and science fields in Nanjing Tech University.120 of them were males, while the other 120 were females. Arts students majored in English, Japanese, German and Law, and science students majored in Computer Science and Electrical Automation.All the subjects were given the L2 productive word knowledge test and the linguistic creativity test in class time, and their personal information (major and gender) should be given in the space provided on each test paper. The corresponding data were submitted to SPSS 20.0 and analyzed by a three-factor between subjects ANOVA.To summarize the results of this study, conclusions should be addressed as follows:1. All of the three factors (L2 productive word knowledge, field of study and gender) have significant main effects on linguistic creativity (L2 productive word knowledge:F=123.969, p<.05, ?~2=.348; field of study:F=15.686, p<.05, F2=.063; gender:F=14.727,p<.05, ?~2=.060).2. There is a significant interaction effect between L2 productive word knowledge and field of study on linguistic creativity (F=11.120, p<.05, ?~2=.046). For either arts or science group, there is a statistically significant mean difference between low productive word knowledge group and high productive word knowledge group (p<.05), i.e. subjects with high level of productive word knowledge generally perform better in linguistic creativity test. Moreover, for low productive word knowledge group, the advantage of arts group over science group is statistically significant (p<.05), i.e. subjects from arts group have a better performance than those from science group in linguistic creativity test, but for high productive word knowledge group, there is no significant mean difference between arts group and science group (p>.05).3. There is a significant interaction effect among L2 productive word knowledge, field of study and gender on linguistic creativity (F= 4.681,p<.05,?~2=.020). The simple interaction effects between L2 productive word knowledge and gender on linguistic creativity in each field indicate that for arts group, there is a significant interaction between L2 productive word knowledge and gender (F= 5.559, p<.05, ?~2=.046). However, for science group, the interaction effect between L2 productive word knowledge and gender fails to reach a statistical significance (p>.05). For male subjects in arts group, there is a statistically significant mean difference between low productive word knowledge group and high productive word knowledge group (p<.05), i.e. subjects with high level of L2 productive word knowledge generally perform better than those with relatively low level of productive word knowledge in linguistic creativity tasks, whereas for female subjects, there is no significant mean difference between low productive word knowledge group and high productive word knowledge group (p>.05). For low productive word knowledge group, the mean difference between males and females is statistically significant (p<.05), i.e. female subjects in arts group have a better performance than male subjects in linguistic creativity tasks, while there is no significant mean difference between males and females for high productive word knowledge group (p>.05).4. Neither L2 productive word knowledge and gender, nor field of study and gender interact to influence linguistic creativity.This study has important theoretical implications, the conclusion supports the LMCA model. It also has pedagogical implications. On the one hand, L2 productive word knowledge generates a positive effect on linguistic creativity, in second language vocabulary teaching, a series of target words-related knowledge such as phrases should be paid enough attention to. In other words, second language teachers should make efforts to enrich the relative teaching materials. On the other hand, universities in China should enrich traditional university curriculum with methods conducive to students'linguistic creativity. A blend of teaching styles such as discussion should be adopted, which will potentially help match students' preferred learning styles and develop their linguistic creativity. Methodologically, this study adopts a 2 ×2×2 between subjects ANOVA design so that a clearer conclusion is made with the consideration of multi-factors.