Cross-language Processing of Persian and English Noncognates in Contextualized and Decontextualized Conditions
Keywords:
cognates, noncognates, facilitation effectAbstract
Similarities and differences of form and meaning between two related words have been focus of attention in many recognition experiments for many years. This study was conducted to investigate the recognition of noncognates in L1-L2 and L2-L1 directions and contextualized and decontextualized conditions. The study was an empirical research. Sixty female pre-intermediate Persian-speaking students, falling between the age range of 16-18, in a high school in Isfahan were examined by means of a Solutions Placement Test (SPT), language background questionnaire, and noncognate recognition test. The data were then analyzed via independent samples t test for the SPT and Mann Whitney U Test for the recognition test. Noncognates indicated no facilitation effect in either of directions, and facilitation effect was more in the contextualized condition than the decontextualized one. The results suggest that in languages with different scripts, young unbalanced bilinguals process noncognate words the same in each direction, and the facilitatory effects are more in the contextualized condition. No facilitation effect can be ascribed to low level of L2 proficiency, overreliance on phonology, and absence of orthographic similarity. The results have noteworthy contributions for high school EFL learners, English teachers, material developers, and syllabus designers for high school course books.
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