The Inhibitory Mechanism in Learning Ambiguous Words in a Second Language

Abstract

Ambiguous words are hard to learn, yet little is known about what causes this difficulty. The current study aimed to investigate the relationship between the representations of new and prior meanings of ambiguous words in second language (L2) learning, and to explore the function of inhibitory control on L2 ambiguous word learning at the initial stage of learning. During a 4-day learning phase, Chinese–English bilinguals learned 30 novel English words for 30 min per day using bilingual flashcards. Half of the words to be learned were unambiguous (had one meaning) and half were ambiguous (had two semantically unrelated meanings learned in sequence). Inhibitory control was introduced as a subject variable measured by a Stroop task. The semantic representations established for the studied items were probed using a cross-language semantic relatedness judgment task, in which the learned English words served as the prime, and the targets were either semantically related or unrelated to the prime. Results showed that response latencies for the second meaning of ambiguous words were slower than for the first meaning and for unambiguous words, and that performance on only the second meaning of ambiguous words was predicted by inhibitory control ability. These results suggest that, at the initial stage of L2 ambiguous word learning, the representation of the second meaning is weak, probably interfered with by the representation of the prior learned meaning. Moreover, inhibitory control may modulate learning of the new meanings, such that individuals with better inhibitory control may more effectively suppress interference from the first meaning, and thus learn the new meaning more quickly.

How Individual Differences Affect Learning of Translation‐Ambiguous Vocabulary

“…To date, the translation‐ambiguity disadvantage has mostly been documented for same‐script materials, such that the to‐be‐learned words used the same orthographic system (e.g., Dutch–English and German–English). Notably, the results of a recent study testing the learning of new meanings of known foreign language words indicated that the translation‐ambiguity disadvantage may be present across scripts (Lu, Wu, Dunlap, & Chen, ; see also Fang, Perfetti, & Stafura, ; Rodd et al., ). In particular, Lu et al.…”

“…In particular, Lu et al. () taught native Chinese speakers ambiguous and unambiguous English pseudowords, withholding the presentation of the second meaning of the ambiguous words until the second session (see also Degani et al., ). The to‐be‐learned English pseudowords were presented visually along with their meaning (depicted in Chinese characters).…”

Semantic Similarity to Known Second Language Words Impacts Learning of New Meanings

“…However, L2 word acquisition includes multiple facets—not only learning novel word form and meaning but also learning additional meanings of already-learned words ( Bogaards, 2001 ). A study using a sequential learning paradigm to investigate the learning of novel ambiguous L2 words found that the later-learned meaning representation is weaker than the first-learned one ( Lu et al, 2017 ), which might be due to interference from the unrelated first-learned meaning; other studies have found that the activation of original meanings during the encoding of new meanings produces an interaction between new and existing word knowledge, a process that may facilitate the integration of new information ( van Kesteren et al, 2012 ; Atir-Sharon et al, 2015 ; Schlichting et al, 2015 ). However, the studies mentioned above were focused on the learning of novel words (e.g., Atir-Sharon et al, 2015 ; Bracken et al, 2017 ; Lu et al, 2017 ), which is different from learning new meanings for familiar words.…”

“…A study using a sequential learning paradigm to investigate the learning of novel ambiguous L2 words found that the later-learned meaning representation is weaker than the first-learned one ( Lu et al, 2017 ), which might be due to interference from the unrelated first-learned meaning; other studies have found that the activation of original meanings during the encoding of new meanings produces an interaction between new and existing word knowledge, a process that may facilitate the integration of new information ( van Kesteren et al, 2012 ; Atir-Sharon et al, 2015 ; Schlichting et al, 2015 ). However, the studies mentioned above were focused on the learning of novel words (e.g., Atir-Sharon et al, 2015 ; Bracken et al, 2017 ; Lu et al, 2017 ), which is different from learning new meanings for familiar words. In the case of learning new ambiguous L2 words, neither the lexical formal representation nor the multiple semantic representation(s) have been well established during the learning process, meaning that this case cannot provide information about how the stable representation of previously known meanings influences the learning of new meanings.…”

“…In the current study, a new meaning (given in the L1) was paired to a familiar L2 word, at one of 2 levels: related to the old meaning [e.g., “forest”- shumu “trees”] or unrelated [e.g., “student”- dongzhi “midwinter”]. Participants learned this new meaning repeatedly, 9 times over 3 consecutive days (a length of time informed by previous studies in lab-based L2 vocabulary acquisition ( Liu et al, 2007 ; Lu et al, 2017 ). In Lu et al (2017) , 30 novel English words (15 unambiguous, 15 ambiguous) were successfully learned by native-Chinese-speaking English-learners over 4 consecutive days (learners reached overall accuracy of 90% in a cross-language semantic relatedness judgment task, which required learners to judge whether the English word they learned was semantically related to a Chinese word), while Liu et al (2007) successfully taught 60 L2 words in 3–4 days, with a total of 6–7 h of training (accuracy on both the naming task and the category judgment task was above 90%.…”