Psychological representation of english learners in vocabulary learning

Abstract

English learning is very popular among Chinese native speakers. It is very meaningful to explore their psychological mechanism during the learning process. Using the shared asymmetric model (SAM), this paper carries out a comparative experiment between English native speakers and Chinese native speakers based on word association test, and quantifies the similarities and differences between the two groups of speakers in the acquisition of English vocabulary. Then, the author discussed the psychological representation in English vocabulary learning. The results show that semantic reaction is the leading type of reaction of both Chinese and English native speakers in vocabulary learning; combinatorial relation is much more common than aggregation relation; Chinese native speakers have higher combinatorial relation than their English counterparts in the three lexical structures: predicate-object structure, middle deviation and predicate union, because the latter have better higher mastery and connectivity of English vocabulary. This research promotes the psychoanalysis on English vocabulary acquisition and provides guidance on Chinese English learners.