Finding meaning in the form of L2 words: what takes place in the learner’s mind during the meaning-making process?

Creating a link between the form and meaning of unknown words can be considered the initial step in vocabulary learning, allowing for learners to build up receptive and productive knowledge of these new words. Research has shown that prompting learners to elaborate on the appropriateness of form-meaning links can be an efficient vocabulary learning exercise (Deconinck, Boers & Eyckmans 2015). In this paper we wish to shed more light on the mental processes that occur during this specific elaborative task by investigating the influence of vocabulary size and multilingualism on the type and number of elaborations that learners make. To this end fifty Dutch-speaking EFL learners rated the congruency they perceived between the form and meaning of 24 English words on a 6-point Likert scale. The motivation of their scores was elicited by means of a think-aloud protocol whose transcriptions were analysed with regard to the type of elaborations made. Both receptive and productive vocabulary size were measured through the LexTale test (Lemhöfer & Broersma 2012) and the Productive Vocabulary Levels Test (Laufer & Nation 1999). In a pre-test questionnaire, the participants also indicated which languages they are proficient in. The data point to four main types of elaborations: cross-lexical associations, sound symbolic associations, word form comparisons, and lexical decompositions. Awareness of the types of elaborations that learners can produce may help us to unravel the mental processes behind form-meaning mapping. It may also reveal which formal features are salient to learners themselves, and show us the kind of meaning-making they are capable of during deliberate word learning. If we wish to assist learners in expanding their L2 lexicons, this knowledge can be capitalized on in the language classroom. The research will also demonstrate whether L2 vocabulary size and/or knowledge of other background languages make it easier for learners to find meaning in the form of L2 words