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Transparency Ratings for Spanishâ•Fienglish Cognate Words

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Transparency Ratings for Spanishâ•Fienglish Cognate Words Cognate Nouns Transparency Ratings for Spanish–English Cognate Words by José A. Montelongo, PhD California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo, California [email protected] (805)756-7492 Anita C. Hernández, PhD California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo, California [email protected] (805)756-5537 Roberta J, Herter, PhD California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo, California [email protected] (805)756-1568 Submitted to Cal Poly Digital Repository March 2, 2009 Running Head: Spanish-English Cognate Ratings 1 Cognate Nouns Transparency Ratings for Spanish–English Cognate Words Abstract Cognates are words that are orthographically, semantically, and syntactically similar in two languages. There are over 20,000 Spanish-English cognates in the Spanish and English languages. Empirical research has shown that cognates facilitate vocabulary acquisition and reading comprehension for language learners when compared to noncognate words. In this study, transparency ratings for over two thousand nouns and adjectives drawn from the Juilland and Chang-Rodríguez’ Spanish Word Frequency Dictionary were collected. The purpose for collecting the ratings was to provide researchers with calibrated materials to study the effects of cognate words on learning. 2 Cognate Nouns Transparency Ratings for Spanish–English Cognate Words An individual’s vocabulary is one of the best predictors of reading comprehension. In general, the larger an individual’s vocabulary, the better the comprehension. Fortunately for English Language Learners (ELLs) whose native language is Spanish, English and Spanish have in common more than 20,000 words that are orthographically, syntactically, and semantically equivalent. The usefulness of Spanish-English cognates is punctuated by the fact that these words are among the most frequently used in the English language (Johnston, 1941; Montelongo, 2002). Educational researchers and practitioners have long been aware that cognates are among the easiest vocabulary items for second language learners to acquire regardless of the language (Lado, 1957; Laufer, 1990). However, research has failed to differentiate between those cognates that are easily recognized from those which are not. One of the reasons for the non-specificity of the research lies in the fact that investigators have typically used stimulus materials without calibrating these materials for cognate transparency. A first step toward the effective study of cognates as a linguistic language population is to collect transparency ratings of these words in order to numerically differentiate the levels of transparency among them. Researchers can use these ratings of cognate transparency to empirically determine the psychological reality of cognates, and their facilitative or inhibitory effects on reading comprehension and vocabulary development. The major purpose of this study is to provide researchers with calibrated materials they can use to conduct experiments requiring the use of cognates as stimulus materials. In order to maximize the utility of these ratings, the cognate stimuli for the experiment were drawn from the Juilland and Chang-Rodríguez (1964) Spanish word frequency book. This frequency dictionary provides frequency of usage statistics for over 5,000 Spanish words. The 3 Cognate Nouns present investigators chose to draw the cognate word stimuli for ratings from a Spanish word frequency book in order to ensure that researchers have access to a built-in Spanish word frequency source in addition to a measure of cognate transparency. Methodology In this study, 2,401 Spanish-English cognate nouns and adjectives were rated for transparency on a scale of 1 to 7. There were 813 adjective pairs and 1588 noun pairs. Instrument. The instrument for this study on Spanish English cognates was developed by identifying the cognate nouns and adjectives in Julliand and Chang-Rodríguez’s (1964) Frequency Dictionary of Spanish Words. Of the two thousand four hundred and one Spanish words that had English cognate equivalents, two-thirds or (1,588) were nouns and the remaining one-third (813) were cognate adjectives. Since nouns and adjectives are the most frequently used stimulus materials, verbs, adverbs, prepositions, and other word types were not included. To provide an anchor for the ratings of the cognates, 126 non-cognate nouns and adjectives were also included in the instrument. The non-cognates consisted of an English word and its translation, such as the English word, “rain,” and the Spanish word, “lluvia.” The list was typed into 2 columns per page with the noncognate pairs interspersed among the cognate pairs into a 33-page booklet. Each item in the instrument contained an English word, its Spanish equivalent, and in between the two words a line with a blank space on which the participants would rate the pair on cognate transparency. Participants were instructed to write a number indicating a rating, in which 7 meant the pairs were “identical” and a rating of 1 meant the cognate pairs were “very dissimilar” in terms of cognate transparency. 4 Cognate Nouns Participants The participants were 41 college students in their junior and senior years enrolled in education courses at a local state university in California. There were 36 females and 5 males. 35 of the participants were between the ages of 20 and 22 and the other six were between the ages of 27 and 30. Procedures The participants were given directions that included a definition of cognates. They were also informed of the purpose of the ratings. Specifically, they were advised that these ratings would be used by educational researchers and textbook authors to create materials for English Language Learners. In order to provide the participants with grounding for their ratings, the participants were also provided with various examples and ratings of Spanish-English cognate words from a previous study (Montelongo, 2002). To reduce an order effect, all the participants were instructed to begin on different pages. The participants were also instructed to complete the ratings in 20- to 30-minute sessions over a 3-week period to avoid fatigue. Students received course credit for completing the cognate ratings. Scoring Once the ratings were completed, the data was entered into a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. Before the mean and standard deviations were calculated, the three highest and the three lowest scores for each cognate pair were eliminated in order to reduce the effect of outliers on the means and standard deviations. Thus, the means and standard deviations are based on the ratings of thirty-five participants. 5 Cognate Nouns Results and Discussion The forty-one respondents rated the transparency of 2,401 cognate and 126 noncognate pairs on a scale of 1 to 7. The mean ratings for the corpus of Spanish-English cognates was 4.943 (sd.=1.244). The transparency ratings for each of the Spanish-English noun cognate pairs are included in Table 1. The mean transparency ratings for the noun cognate pairs 4.860 (s.d. = 1.257). The transparency ratings for each of the Spanish-English adjective cognate pairs are included in Table 2. The mean transparency ratings for the adjectival cognate pairs was 5.107 (sd. = 1.201). ______________________________ Insert Table 1 about here ______________________________ The distribution of ratings is presented in Figure 3. Approximately two-thirds of the transparency ratings ranged from 4.0 to slightly less than 6.0. At the upper end of the distribution, there were 173 pairs that were rated as identical. Conversely, twenty percent of the cognate pairs received transparency ratings less than 4.0. Many of the words that were in the 6.00 to 6.999 range differed by an accent mark as in the pairs, habitual—habítual and carbon-carbón. The majority of pairs fell in the 5.0 to 5.9999 category. These cognate pairs tended to be those words that differed in one letter (native— nativo), word ending suffix (generous—generoso or attention-atención) or the presence of the double consonant in the English word (different—diferente). The cognate pairs rated lower than 5.0 tended to be those that contained vastly different word endings (disaster-desastre or mentioned—mencionado). Many of the cognate pairs that fell in the 1.0 to 3.0 range tended to differ in their first letters (uncertain—incierto or government-gobierno) or possess vastly 6 Cognate Nouns different spelling (feigned—fingido). The distribution of the adjective cognate ratings, along with examples of these, is included in Table 2. Conclusions This study provides transparency ratings for 2,401 Spanish-English cognate pairs show a range of differentiation from those pairs that were ranked identical, or ranked as a 7, to those cognate pairs that were somewhat similar, ranked as a 5, and those pairs that were very dissimilar, and ranked as 1 or a 2. Researchers may use the ratings to generate stimuli for experiments on the effects of cognates on learning. References Johnston, Margaret C. (1941). Spanish-English cognates of high frequency. The Modern Language Journal, 25(5), 405-417. Julliand, A.J. & Chang-Rodríguez, E .(1964). The Spanish Frequency Word Book. NY: Moutin. Lado, R. (1957). Linguistics Across Cultures: Applied Linguistics for Teachers. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Laufer, B. (1990). Ease and difficulty in vocabulary learning: Some teaching implications. Foreign Language Annuals, 23, 147-154. Montelongo, J. (2002). Learning and Memory for Spanish English Cognates. Doctoral Dissertation.
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