One goal of applied linguistics is to learn languages better and faster. Second language (L2) learners need to acquire large vocabularies to approach native-like proficiency in their targeted language. A number of studies have explored the factors that facilitate and hinder word learning using highly controlled experiments, however, these lack ecological validity and the findings may not generalize to real-world learning. The studies in this thesis respond to this gap in the literature. The studies leverage big data from a popular language learning app called Lingvist to explore how understudied semantic factors such as valence (positivity/negativity) and concreteness impact adult L2 word learning. Chapter 2 explores the shape of valence effects on learning, the interaction between the semantics of the target word and the linguistic context in which the word is learned, and how these effects unfold over multiple exposures to the target word. Users learn both positive and negative words better than neutral ones, and learning improves by 7% when target words appear in emotionally congruent contexts (i.e., positive words in positive sentences, negative words in negative sentences). These effects are strongest on the learner’s second encounter with the word and diminish over subsequent encounters. Chapter 3 examines the interaction between target word valence and concreteness. Increased positivity increased accuracy for concrete words by up to 13%, but had little impact on learning abstract words. On the theoretical front, findings provide support for embodied cognition, the lexical quality hypothesis, and the multimodal induction hypothesis. On the applied front, they indicate that context valence can be manipulated to facilitate learning and identify which words will be most difficult to learn. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc) / Language learners need to know tens of thousands of words to communicate fluently in a language. These studies use data from a popular language learning app called Lingvist to understand how the emotionality of words and the sentences we see them in impact learning. Negative words (e.g., murder) and positive words (e.g., vaccation) were learned better than neutral words. Positive words were learned better when they are part of a positive sentence and negative words are learned better in more negative sentences. The second study found that concrete words like brick or table are easier to learn when they are positive, but emotions have little impact on learning abstract words like hope. These findings help researchers understand how words are represented in the mind and point to ways to make language learning faster and easier.

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