Word associations have traditionally been used in linguistic research as a means of accessing information about the organisation of the mental lexicon. A number of important studies have revealed differences in word association behaviour in the L1 and the L2, but have failed to find consistent behaviour patterns. The study reported here suggests that this failure might be due to two factors: the choice of stimulus words and the categorisation of responses, which impose artificial constraints on both association behaviour and the exploration of response types. In order to move the investigation of L2 word associations forward, this study compares native speaker responses to a specific set of stimuli with those of advanced non-native speakers. The types of association response made by each group of subjects are investigated by means of a retrospective interview, and patterns in response types are mapped. This results in a new method of categorising word association responses, and provides more precise insight into the differences between L1 and L2 association patterns.
Cited by (39)
Cited by 39 other publications
Fitzpatrick, Tess
2025. Word Associations. In The Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics, ► pp. 1 ff.
Fitzpatrick , Tess
2007. Word association patterns: unpacking the assumptions. International Journal of Applied Linguistics 17:3 ► pp. 319 ff.
Mora Guarin, Jaqueline
2025. ‘Key Contributions of Lexical Availability to the Study of Semantic Prototypes in Foreign Language Learning’. Cuadernos de Investigación Filológica
Haslett, David A. & Zhenguang G. Cai
2024. Wayward associations: When and why people think of similar-sounding words. Journal of Memory and Language 138 ► pp. 104537 ff.
Planchuelo, Clara, José Antonio Hinojosa & Jon Andoni Duñabeitia
2024. The nature of lexical associations in a foreign language: valence, arousal and concreteness. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 27:5 ► pp. 835 ff.
Wang, Xin & Ping Zhang
2024. ‘Did I repeat so many English words?’: Stability of L1 and L2 word association responses over time and across response positions. Lingua 310 ► pp. 103804 ff.
Eguchi, Masaki, Shungo Suzuki & Yuichi Suzuki
2022. LEXICAL COMPETENCE UNDERLYING SECOND LANGUAGE WORD ASSOCIATION TASKS. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 44:1 ► pp. 112 ff.
Jiang, Nan & Xuesong Wu
2022. Orthographic Priming in Second‐Language Visual Word Recognition. Language Learning 72:3 ► pp. 625 ff.
Li, Ming, Lubei Zhang & Qi Zhou
2022. A Study on the Developmental Features of Yi Students’ Chinese Mental Lexicon. Frontiers in Psychology 13
2022. To What Extent is Collocation Knowledge Associated with Oral Proficiency? A Corpus-Based Approach to Word Association. Language and Speech 65:2 ► pp. 311 ff.
Wimhurst, Andrew
2022. Using Word Association Tests to Assess L2 Vocabulary Proficiency. In The TESOL Encyclopedia of English Language Teaching, ► pp. 1 ff.
Gor, Kira, Svetlana Cook, Denisa Bordag, Anna Chrabaszcz & Andreas Opitz
2021. Fuzzy Lexical Representations in Adult Second Language Speakers. Frontiers in Psychology 12
2021. Using a word association task to investigate semantic depth in swedish-speaking children with developmental language disorder. Logopedics Phoniatrics Vocology 46:3 ► pp. 134 ff.
Akbarian, Is’haaq, Fatemeh Farajollahi & Rosa María Jiménez Catalán
2020. EFL learners’ lexical availability: Exploring frequency, exposure, and vocabulary level. System 91 ► pp. 102261 ff.
Memarian-Mojarab, Mina & Hadi Farjami
2020. Comparing the effect of teaching collocations versus single words on speaking fluency and accuracy. International Journal of Research Studies in Education 8:3
Spätgens, Tessa & Rob Schoonen
2020. The structure of developing semantic networks: Evidence from single and multiple nominal word associations in young monolingual and bilingual readers. Applied Psycholinguistics 41:5 ► pp. 1141 ff.
Berger, Cynthia M, Scott A Crossley & Kristopher Kyle
2019. Using Native-Speaker Psycholinguistic Norms to Predict Lexical Proficiency and Development in Second-Language Production. Applied Linguistics 40:1 ► pp. 22 ff.
Crossley, Scott A & Stephen Skalicky
2019. Making sense of polysemy relations in first and second language speakers of English. International Journal of Bilingualism 23:2 ► pp. 400 ff.
Crossley, Scott A. & Stephen Skalicky
2019. Examining lexical development in second language learners: An approximate replication of Salsbury, Crossley & McNamara (2011). Language Teaching 52:3 ► pp. 385 ff.
Ma, Qing & Hung Yuk Lee
2019. Measuring the Vocabulary Knowledge of Hong Kong Primary School Second Language Learners Through Word Associations: Implications for Reading Literacy. In English Literacy Instruction for Chinese Speakers, ► pp. 35 ff.
Vetchinnikova, Svetlana
2019. Phraseology and the Advanced Language Learner,
Woll, Nina
2019. Investigating Positive Lexical Transfer from English (L2) to German (L3) by Quebec Francophones. In International Research on Multilingualism: Breaking with the Monolingual Perspective [Multilingual Education, 35], ► pp. 103 ff.
Men, Haiyan
2018. Chinese Learners’ Production of Verb + Noun Collocations. In Vocabulary Increase and Collocation Learning, ► pp. 77 ff.
Xu, Jing
2018. Measuring “Spoken Collocational Competence” in Communicative Speaking Assessment. Language Assessment Quarterly 15:3 ► pp. 255 ff.
El-Dakhs, Dina Abdel Salam
2017. The Effect of Language Exposure and Word Characteristics on the Arab EFL Learners’ Word Associations. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 46:4 ► pp. 1033 ff.
Cook, Svetlana V., Nick B. Pandža, Alia K. Lancaster & Kira Gor
2016. Fuzzy Nonnative Phonolexical Representations Lead to Fuzzy Form-to-Meaning Mappings. Frontiers in Psychology 7
Fitzpatrick, Tess, David Playfoot, Alison Wray & Margaret J. Wright
2015. Establishing the Reliability of Word Association Data for Investigating Individual and Group Differences. Applied Linguistics 36:1 ► pp. 23 ff.
Schmitt, Norbert
2014. Size and Depth of Vocabulary Knowledge: What the Research Shows. Language Learning 64:4 ► pp. 913 ff.
Gabryś-Barker, Danuta
2013. Perceptions of Space in the Multilingual Mind. In Investigations in Teaching and Learning Languages [Second Language Learning and Teaching, ], ► pp. 149 ff.
Khazaeenezhad, Bahareh & Ahmad Alibabaee
2013. Investigating the Role of L2 Language Proficiency in Word Association Behavior of L2 Learners: A Case of Iranian EFL Learners. Theory and Practice in Language Studies 3:1
Playfoot, David & Cristina Izura
2013. Imageability, age of acquisition, and frequency factors in acronym comprehension. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 66:6 ► pp. 1131 ff.
Akbarian, I.
2011. Tess Fitzpatrick and Andy Barfield (eds): Lexical Processing in Second Language Learners: Papers and Perspectives in Honour of Paul Meara.. Applied Linguistics 32:4 ► pp. 458 ff.
Cremer, Marjolein, Daphne Dingshoff, Meike de Beer & Rob Schoonen
2011. Do word associations assess word knowledge? A comparison of L1 and L2, child and adult word associations. International Journal of Bilingualism 15:2 ► pp. 187 ff.
Fitzpatrick, Tess & Cristina Izura
2011. WORD ASSOCIATION IN L1 AND L2. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 33:3 ► pp. 373 ff.
Wolter, Brent & Henrik Gyllstad
2011. Collocational Links in the L2 Mental Lexicon and the Influence of L1 Intralexical Knowledge. Applied Linguistics 32:4 ► pp. 430 ff.
Fitzpatrick, Tess & Jon Clenton
2010. The challenge of validation: Assessing the performance of a test of productive vocabulary. Language Testing 27:4 ► pp. 537 ff.
Higginbotham, George
2010. Individual learner profiles from word association tests: The effect of word frequency. System 38:3 ► pp. 379 ff.
Mollin, Sandra
2009. Combining corpus linguistic and psychological data on word co-occurrences: Corpus collocates versus word associations. Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory 5:2
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