A Comparative Study of English and Egyptian Word Associations and Their Implications for the Teach1ng of English to Egyptian
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A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF ENGLISH AND EGYPTIAN WORD ASSOCIATIONS AND THEIR IMPLICATIONS FOR THE TEACH1NG OF ENGLISH TO EGYPTIAN LEARNERS by ALY AN WAR MOHAMAD AMER Thesis submitted for the Ph.D. Degree of London University Institute of Education Department of English as a Foreign Language 1980 2. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I should like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor Mr C.J. Brumfit for his thorough observations and invaluable guidance he has offered during work on this thesis. A special gratitude is due to Dr G. Broughton, first, for his suggestion of the topic of "word associations" for me, and second, for his continuous encouragement through- out the thesis. I am also grateful to the staff of the School Relations Office in the Institute of Education for con- tacting the educational authorities and organizing my visits to the English schools to conduct the test. My deep thanks are also due to the headmasters, headmistresses, teachers and pupils of the English and Egyptian schools for their cooperation and help. Finally, I must record my gratitude and anpre- ciation to my wife, first, for her support and patience with my ill-temper and absent-mindedness while I was writing the thesis, and second, for her assistance in processing the data. As for my daughter, I promise to compensate her for the time, attention and affection I have taken from her life to devote to my thesis. I should not forget to express my gratitude for the Egyptian people for financing my scholarship. 3. ABS T RACT Revival of interest in word associations has taken a new shape. It has been realized that word associations can be a reliable technique for the compara- tive study of cultures. Word associations can explore the contents of human minds without being expressed in the full discursive structure of language. They are capable of yielding significant information about the attitudes, beliefs, and cognitive structures of cultures. This information may be of considerable peda- gogic importance in foreign-language teaching. A foreign language should be taught in its native cultural context. Hence, foreign learners have to learn about this cultural context. Word associations can help the FL teacher in this respect through introducing, to the learners, this information about the attitudes, beliefs, and cognitive structure of the culture of the target language. A comparative study of English and Egyptian word associations has been carried out and the pedagogic implications for the teaching of English to Egyptian learners have been discussed. 4. CONTENT S Page Introduction 10 Tables 14 Chapter I: Word Associations: a General Review lS-47 1.1 History of Associationism 16 1.1.1 Associationism in Greek Philosophy 16 1.1.2 British School of Associationisin 17 1.1.3 Invention and Development of the Word Association Test (WAT) 18 1.1.4 Associationism in Behaviourism 21 1.1.5 WAT and Verbal Learning and Behaviour 23 1.2 Description of the WAT 24 1.3 Types of WAT 25 1.3.1 Single-Response Free Associations 25 1.3.2 Multiple-Response Free Associations 26 1.3.3 Single-Response Controlled Associations 26 1.3.4 Multiple-Response Controlled Associations 27 1.4 Standard Word Association Tests 27 1.4.1 Thumb and Marble Test 27 1.4.2 Xent-Rosanoff Test 28 1.5 Analysis of Associative Responses 29 1.5.1 Production Measures 29 1.5.2 Relational Measures 30 5. Page 1.6 Variables affecting Associative Responses 34 1.6.1 Stimulus Variables 34 1.6.2 Subject Variables 37 1.6.3 Independent Variables 40 1.7 Diachronic Studies of Word Associations 41 1.7.1 Adult Studies 41 1.7.2 Children Studies 42 1.8 Cross-Cultural Studies of Word Associations 43 Chapter II: Word Associations and Foreign- Language Teaching 4 8-70 2.1 Word Associations and Vocabulary Selection 49 2.1.1 Frequency 49 2.1.2 Availability 51 2.1.3 Familiarity 53 2.2 Word Associations as a Vocabulary Selection Technique 54 2.2.1 WAT and Verbal Behaviour in Unstructured Situations 54 2.2.2 WAT and Frequency 56 2.3 Word Associations and Developmental Changes 57 2.4 Word Associations and Subjective Meaning 59 2.5 Word Associations, Communicative Competence and Native Speaker Insight 64 2.6 Foreign-Language Learning and Implications for WAT Constructions 67 6. Page Chapter III: Construction of the Word Association Test 71-84 3.1 Teaching of English in Egypt 72 3.1.1 Objectives of Teaching English in Egypt 73 3.1.2 Textbooks 77 3.2 Characteristics of WAT 78 3.2.1 Selection of Categories and Stimuli 78 3.2.2 Relationships Among Stimuli 80 3.3 Characteristics of the Stimulus Words 81 3.4 Testees 83 3.5 Reaction Time 83 3.6 Instructions 84 Chapter IV: Language, Culture and Thought 85-13€ 4.1 Language 86 4.1.1 Approaches to Language 87 4.1.2 Functions of Language 88 4.1.3 Language and Foreign-Language Teaching 92 4.2 Culture 94 4.2.1 Nature and Characteristics of Culture 94 4.2.2 Approaches to Culture 97 4.2.3 Language and Culture 101 4.3 Language, Culture and Thought 109 4.3.1 Humboldt's Hypothesis 110 4.3.2 Sapir's Hypothesis 111 4.3.3 Whorf's Hypothesis 112 4.3.4 The S-W Hypothesis: Experimental Evidence 114 7. Page 4.3.5 A Systematization of the S-W Hypothesis (Fishinan) 120 4.3.6 A Developmental Theory of Relativity (Carroll) 122 4.3.7 A sociolinguistic Approach to Relativity (Bernstein) 122 4.4 Language, Culture, Thought and Foreign- Language Teaching 123 4.5 Culture and Word Associations 125 4.6 Culture and Foreign-Language Teaching 130 Chapter V: Language Acquisition 137-174 5.1 Behaviourisni 138 5.2 Learning of Grammatical Structure (in Behaviourism) 140 5.2.1 Mediational Theory 141 5.2.2 Contextual Theory 142 5.3 Nativism 144 5.3.1 Main Tenets 144 5.3.2 Criticism of Behavioural Mechanisms 146 5.3.3 Nativist Mechanisms 148 5.3.4 Structure of the Language Acquisition Device (LAD) 149 5.4 Acquisition of Grammatical Structure (in Nativism) 151 5.5 When Does the Learning of Grammar Come to an End? 153 8. Page 5.6 Behaviourism and Nativisin: An Evaluation 155 5.7 Language Acquisition and Word Associations 161 5.7.1 Word Associations as a Technique for Language Acquisition Study 161 5.7.2 The Syntagmatic-Paradigmatic (S-P) Shift 163 5.7.3 Interpretation of S-P Shift 167 Chapter VI: Cognitive Development and Its Relationship to Linguistic Development 175-19 6.1 Cognitive Development 176 6.1.1 Criteria of a Theory of Cognitive Growth 176 6.1.2 Bruner t s Theory of Cognitive Growth 180 6.1.3 Role of Value Orientation, Language, and Schooling on Cognitive Development 183 6.2 The Relationship Between Cognitive Development and Linguistic Development 187 6.3 Cognitive Development and Word Associations 190 Chapter VII: Data Analysis: Its Pedagogic Impli- cations and Implementations 195-28 7.1 The Theoretical Validity of Word Associations 196 7.2 The Pedagogic Value of Word Associations 198 7.3 General Points 201 7.4 Data Analysis 203 7.4.1 Linguistic Dimension 204 (A) Deese's Approach 204 (B) Clark's Approach 214 7.4.2 Cognitive Dimension 221 9. Page 7.4.3 Cultural Dimension 226 7.4.4 Detailed Analysis of Some Domains 230 7.5 Pedagogic Implications 240 7.6 Pedagogic Implementation 268 Appendix I: The English Version of the WAT 282 Appendix II: The Arabic Version of WAT 288 Appendix III: Map of Egypt 296 Appendix IV: English Associative Norms 298 Appendix V: Egyptian Associative Norms 380 Bibliography 469 10. INTRODUCTION Interest in the phenomenon of association has an old history. The fact that people associatively cluster word stimuli with the same word responses has preoccupied scholars since Plato. This interest has recently taken a new shape. It has been recognized that word associations may be a reliable technique for the objective and comparative study of different cultures. Word associations can predict those repetitive patterns which could be interpreted as significant and systematizable patterns of the culture and linguistic behaviour of a certain people. These patterns, in turn, reflect the people's world view and how they categorize experience. From the communicative point of view, these patterns may be of great significance in foreign-language teaching. A foreign-language should be taught in its cultural context. It follows, then, that foreign learners have to learn about that cultural context of the target language. Word associations can help the FL teacher in this respect through introducing, to the learners, those sociolinguistic patterns of the foreign-language culture. To put this argument into application, a compara- tive study of English and Egyptian word associations has been carried out and the pedagogic implications and iin p le- mentations of this study have been discussed. 11. In Chapter I the history of associationism has been reviewed in order to see how the concept of asso- ciationism has developed through different schools of thought, how the Word Association Test (WAT) is constructed, how associations are analysed and what variables affect the production of associations. The diachronic and cross- cultural studies of word associations are also discussed. Chapter II deals with the pedagogic value of word associations. How, for example, they can be a reliable technique for vocabulary selection. The peda- gogic implications of the capability of word associations of probing the subjective meaning of a culture, as well as the relationship of word associations to the notions of "communicative competence" and "Native Speaker Insight" are tackled.