Comprehension of Abstract Words in Second Language Acquisition

Abstract

The article discusses the results of an experiment aimed to clarify the impact that explaining a context in which a word is used may have on the degree and nature of its understanding in second language acquisition. The underlying hypothesis is that the quality of comprehension of the meaning of abstract words of a foreign language by bilinguals will vary depending on the way these words are represented. To test the hypothesis a free associative experiment consisting of two parts was conducted. 12 stimuli in English with abstract meaning were presented to subjects (4th-year students with Russian-English bilingualism). The first group of participants (a total of 33 people) was given vocabulary explanation of these words; the second group (35 people in total) was given sentences in which the same words are used in a simulated situation of using them in accordance with their dictionary definition. The authors come to the conclusion that informants’ acquaintance with a concrete situation of using abstract words does not help them to “internalize” these words, and also increases the number of emotional associations indicating that these words are part of their personal experience of cognition and communication. However, an equal number of reactions associated with the stimulus by their semantics, and not by the evoken emotion, in both parts of the experiment means that both dictionary interpretation and description of a specific situation realize the semantic potential of a word significantly and allow us to correctly interpret its meaning.

Keywords

abstract meaning, personal sense, vocabulary interpretation, associative experiment, second language acquisition