Effect Of Relative Frequency Of Lexical Meanings On Accessing Lexical Ambiguities By Advanced Chinese EFL Learners

Lexical ambiguity is a common phenomenon in English.Research on the resolution of lexical ambiguity began in 1970 s,and several theories have been developed on how comprehenders settle on a single meaning.Many studies have investigated the effect of the relative meaning frequency(the use frequency of multiple meanings of an ambiguous word)and other factors on the resolution of lexical ambiguity for both L1 and L2 learners,while the research subjects of them are mainly content words.This thesis,based on the previous studies on accessing ambiguous content words by Chinese EFL learners,aims at coordinator ‘and’ as the research subject to investigate the effect of relative meaning frequency on accessing ambiguous coordinators by advanced Chinese EFL learners.In this thesis,a corpus study was conducted first.Based on the data taken from the Chinese Learner English Corpus,the use frequency of multiple meanings of coordinator ‘and’was obtained.Then a lexical decision task was employed to investigate whether there is effect of the relative meaning frequency on accessing coordinator ‘and’ by advanced Chinese EFL learners and further explored whether the relatedness-of-meaning leads to confusions in lexical access.In the lexical decision task,21 participants who are advanced Chinese EFL learners were requested to choose one of the two meanings for the coordinator ‘and’ which connects two clauses in a complex sentence,and the accuracy and reaction time(RT)were recorded by E-prime.Whether there is an effect of the relative meaning frequency on accessing ‘and’ is reflected by the RT,and the accuracy shows whether the relatedness-of-meaning leads to confusions in lexical access.As is found in this study: 1)The relative meaning frequency of coordinator ‘and’ in a descending order was: ADDITION > SEQUENCE > RESULT > CONTRAST > SIMILAR >COMMENT OR EXPLANATION > CONCESSION > CONDITION;2)Relative meaning frequency did influence the access of coordinator ‘and’ by advanced Chinese EFL learners —the higher the relative meaning frequency,the shorter the response time,and vice versa;3)The relatedness between meanings led to confusions in lexical access,resulting in wrong access finally.Overall,the results confirm the role of the relative meaning frequency on accessing ambiguous coordinator ‘and’ by advanced Chinese EFL learners and reveal the importance of distinguishing the related meanings of an ambiguous word for Chinese EFL learners.