Investigation of collocational priming in tertiary level Turkish EFL learners' mental lexicon

Abstract

It has been long acknowledged that English as a foreign language learners use the language in a non-native-like and unnatural fashion. Regarding that, many studies in Turkish context have been undertaken in order to investigate language use of those learners suggesting that learners produce ill-formed language, and fail to use formulaic sequences and collocations as well as native speakers do in their linguistic performance. However, those studies fail to recognize formulaic sequences and collocations in terms of psycholinguistic framework. The current study was inspired by Hoey's (2005) influential Lexical Priming Theory which emphasizes that collocations are not only textual but also psychological phenomena. In this sense, this study underlines that non-native-like language use of Turkish EFL learners may stem from the fact that collocations are not mentally represented as a single unit in their mental lexicon. More precisely, the current study investigates whether academic verb+noun collocations are primed in tertiary level Turkish EFL learners' mental lexicon in order to uncover the psycholinguistic reason behind their non-native-like language use. To this end, a widely used priming experiment in the field, namely a lexical decision task (LDT), was designed including 136 word pairs, and 71 participants studying at the ELL department at Gümüşhane University were recruited in a computer laboratory. During the several sessions of the LDT, the participants were asked to classify the words flashing on their screens as words or non-words in English by pressing the pre-specified buttons on the keyboard. Their reaction times in response to the classification of the words concluded that academic verb+noun collocations are not primed in Turkish EFL learners. In addition, a mixed effect modeling analysis demonstrated that the frequency of the prime words in collocations has a significant effect while the participants process the collocations. The findings of the experiment were discussed in light of vocabulary acquisition theories in second language, and suggestions were provided for further research so as to fill the gaps of the current study.