Mapping the spoken vocabulary knowledge of second language (L2) learners of English

2022 Fiscal Year Research-status Report

• Project/Area Number: 22K00814
• Research Institution: Hiroshima University
• Principal Investigator: CLENTON JONATHAN 広島大学, 人間社会科学研究科(総), 准教授 (80762434)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): Fraser Simon 広島大学, 外国語教育研究センター, 教授 (10403510) ; 内原 卓海 早稲田大学, 理工学術院, 講師(任期付) (10905847)
• Project Period (FY): 2022-04-01 – 2025-03-31
• Keywords: fluency / vocabulary / speach / lemma / flemma

Outline of Annual Research Achievements

In the current study, we explore potential relationships between lexical diversity (with different text lengths and analysis units), utterance fluency, and general speaking proficiency. We aim to report on an investigation of approximately 105 participants from a UK university divided into three different IELTS proficiency levels. We explore a corpus of participant undergraduate presentations. We investigate and compare flemma, lemma, and simple count influences on LD measure speaking predictability, using three basic LD measures and three sophisticated measures. Following earlier research (Treffers-Daller 2013), we also examine different text lengths.

Current Status of Research Progress

2: Research has progressed on the whole more than it was originally planned.

Reason

To complete the research project, we are currently employing research assistants to process our data bank.

Strategy for Future Research Activity

By investigating whether results mirror recent findings (Myint Maw et al., 2022) that both flemmatization and lemmatization influence LD scores, we examine potential relationships between LD and our other factors, and the extent to which LD is a predictor of general speaking proficiency when simple, flemma, and lemma counts are applied . We also report on different spoken text length influences. We discuss analysis units and text length influences on LD measure predictions of utterance fluency at different levels of general speaking proficiency.

Causes of Carryover

continuation of the research project
attendance at vocabulary at victoria conference in New Zealand, December 2023.

The amount from FY2022 remained due to our processing data from an existing corpora (we did not need to pay participants for their work, and we were able to process data ourselves and so did not need to use the FY2022 funds)