Basic level salience in second language acquisition: A study of English vocabulary learning by Chinese adults

Abstract

‘Basic-level salience’ is a fundamental concept in Cognitive Psychology and related disciplines. It captures the phenomenon that the basic level of categorization is psychologically more salient than other levels (Rosch et al. 1976). However, findings showing that basic-level words possess a superior status in human communication and vocabulary learning (Rosch et al. 1976; Kövecses 2006) so far pertained only to individuals’ L1. In this paper, we argue that Rosch et al.’s insights are highly relevant in L2 contexts as well. To test the hypothesis that basic-level salience can be evidenced in L2 vocabulary learning, an experiment was conducted among 69 Chinese adult learners of English. On a series of slides, participants were simultaneously presented with different pictures and three English words at the superordinate, basic, and subordinate level. This presentation was followed by a picture naming task, in which participants were expected to write down the first English names that came to their mind. The main results of this experiment are as follows: 1) L2 basic-level words are the most readily given responses in the picture naming task, suggesting the existence of the basic-level salience in L2 vocabulary learning; 2) the presence of the basic-level salience is a matter of degree, influenced by factors such as concept familiarity and, what we call, the 'first-encountered-first-retrieved' effect.