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Cultural Factors in Second Language Vocabulary Acquisition

Author: GaoLi
Tutor: YangLianRui
School: Ocean University of China
Course: Foreign Linguistics and Applied Linguistics
Keywords: culture vocabulary acquisition cultural awareness college English teaching
CLC: H09
Type: Master's thesis
Year: 2010
Downloads: 34
Quote: 0
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Abstract


Vocabulary is the basic material in building language; vocabulary acquisition is an essential part of language acquisition. Language and culture are closely relevant to each other, it carries the rich culture. If the second language learner only know the conceptual meaning of the word without its cultural meaning, it is very likely to cause the misuse of the word. While the second language learners, greatly affected by the negative transfer from the mother tongue, know nothing about the cultural meaning of the word or ignore it absolutely which result in the inappropriate use of the word. Based on the differences of the words between English and Chinese, combined with mother tongue’s transfer during the process of second language learning, the following hypothesis is formulated:in the process of second language vocabulary acquisition, the second language learner should have cultural awareness, know something about the culture of the second language, then the negative transfer can be reduced greatly, then the vocabulary acquisition in the second language can be greatly improved.In order to make objective connotation differences of the words in English and in Chinese, based on the literature review, the author selected 75 students in grade 2 from Qingdao Agricultural University to do the empirical study. The students are divided into three groups according to the different extent of mastering the cultural background knowledge to check their performance in the use of vocabulary and the successful acquisition of vocabulary. By comparing the different performance of the three group students, the role of the cultural factors in the second language vocabulary acquisition will be explained. The author tried to put emphasis on the importance of the cultural factors in the second language vocabulary acquisition and discuss the necessity of the input of the culture in the vocabulary instruction. Then, the author made a questionnaire about the cultural awareness of the non-English major students in the second language vocabulary acquisition and the students’ subjective attitude toward the necessity of the input of the culture in the vocabulary instruction, of which most of the students believe it important to have cultural awareness in the process of second language vocabulary acquisition and necessary to combine the culture instruction with vocabulary teaching. What’s more, the author designed a questionnaire for 10 experienced college English teachers in Qingdao Agricultural University and made a follow-up interview on two of them to ascertain their perspective and confusion about the culture instruction in the college English vocabulary teaching.The conclusion of the study can help the second language learners with vocabulary acquisition. It alerts the second language learners to the significance of the cultural awareness in vocabulary acquisition. The second language learners should combine the culture acquisition with vocabulary acquisition effectively and try best to avoid the negative transfer caused by the native language in the second language vocabulary acquisition. All the above can bring success in vocabulary acquisition finally.

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