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Article published In: ITL - International Journal of Applied Linguistics
Vol. 176:1 (2025) ► pp.111–146

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How much receptive affix knowledge do L1 speakers and L2 learners have?

ORCiD logo with link | University of Western Ontario
Published online: 6 May 2025
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/itl.24014.iwa
Abstract
Although there is a growing interest in assessing how much L2 receptive affix knowledge learners have, research testing this knowledge using an extensive, standardized measure is relatively scarce. This study tested 21 L1 and 107 L2 learners of English to assess receptive knowledge of forms, meanings, and grammatical functions of 118 derivational affixes. Participants’ responses on the Word Part Levels Test were analyzed in mixed effects logistic regression models that examined the effects of affix difficulty, affix knowledge aspect, and vocabulary levels in predicting response accuracy. Results indicated that L1 and L2 affix knowledge differed depending on affix difficulty and knowledge aspect, L2 affix knowledge increased as a function of L2 vocabulary levels, and there was a clear difference between learners that had not mastered the first 1,000 frequency level and the rest of the learners. This suggests that developing the knowledge of the highest frequency vocabulary is critical to improve affix knowledge. The importance of using standardized measures of vocabulary in teaching and researching vocabulary knowledge is also discussed.
Article outline
  • I.Introduction
    • 1.Second language affix knowledge
    • 2.To what extent Do L1 speakers have receptive affix knowledge?
    • 3.To what extent does affix knowledge improve with vocabulary levels?
  • II.The current study
  • III.Methods
    • 1.Participants
    • 2.Procedure
    • 3.Vocabulary tests
    • 4.Data analysis
  • IV.Results
    • 1.Descriptive statistics of the WPLT
    • 2.The effects of affix difficulty and knowledge aspect
    • 3.L1 and L2 affix knowledge
    • 4.The differences among L1 Speakers and L2 learners with varying vocabulary levels
  • V.Discussion
    • 1.To what extent do affix difficulty and knowledge aspect affect receptive affix knowledge?
    • 2.To what extent do L1 and L2 affix knowledge differ?
    • 3.To what extent does receptive knowledge of affixes differ among L1 Speakers and L2 Learners with varying vocabulary levels?
  • VI.Implications
  • VII.Limitations and future directions
  • VIII.Conclusion
  • Note
  • References
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