The Impact of Metalinguistic English Vocabulary Knowledge and Lexical Inferencing on EFL Learners’ Lexical Knowledge Considering the Cross-Linguistic Issue of L۱ Lexicalization

The present study endeavors to unravel the enigma of the psycholinguistic mechanisms underpinning bilingual mental lexicon by analyzing the issue of L۱ lexicalization as a construct epitomizing an overarching framework. It involves ۷۸ juniors at the Islamic Azad University, Roudehen Branch. The study inspects the impact of the interventionist/noninterventionist treatments on both sets of lexicalized and nonlexicalized items pedagogically. It further tries to bring the bilingual mental lexicon under scrutiny by investigating the cross-linguistic issue of L۱ lexicalization psycholinguistically. The results, obtained through the independent t-test, indicate a significant difference between the two groups dealing with both sets of items. The paired t-test shows that the learners had a greater degree of familiarity with lexicalized items at pretesting, and they were more successful in learning lexicalized items at posttesting. However, no significant difference was found in gain scores in the two groups. The descriptive analyses indicate that the number of lexicalized words produced productively was approximately two times as many as the number of nonlexicalized items at the same level in the interventionist group. Moreover, the number of nonlexicalized items learned partially was much greater in comparison with their lexicalized counterparts. The results have implications for EFL methodologists and theoreticians.

Keywords:

metalinguistic awareness , inferencing , lexical quality hypothesis , hybrid entry stage , mental lexicon