This study investigated whether English second language learners learn the senses of polysemous vocabulary items in an order from a core sense to more extended senses. Polysemous words have one form but many interrelated meanings. It was hypothesised that such an order could be explained by way of the theory of prototypicality. / 48 ESL learners from three language groups, French, Japanese and Chinese, took part in the study. The participants translated into their first language 29 English sentences using different senses of the word over. Translations were coded for correct translations of the sense of over and for variation in the correct translations. A MANOVA analysis showed that core senses were translated significantly more correctly than extended senses. A negative correlation was shown between variation in translation and correctness of translation. Following Krzeszowski, T. (1990), the study confirms that the theory of prototypicality offers an effective way of explaining language transfer.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.83122 |
| Date | January 2005 |
| Creators | Maby, Mark |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Arts (Department of Second Language Education.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 002227964, proquestno: AAIMR12740, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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