Tengfei Ma | The Open University of China (original) (raw)

Papers by Tengfei Ma

Frontiers in psychology, 2017

Previous studies have found quantity of exposure, i.e., frequency of exposure (Horst et al., 1998... more Previous studies have found quantity of exposure, i.e., frequency of exposure (Horst et al., 1998; Webb, 2008; Pellicer-Sánchez and Schmitt, 2010), is important for second language (L2) contextual word learning. Besides this factor, context constraint and L2 proficiency level have also been found to affect contextual word learning (Pulido, 2003; Tekmen and Daloglu, 2006; Elgort et al., 2015; Ma et al., 2015). In the present study, we adopted the event-related potential (ERP) technique and chose high constraint sentences as reading materials to further explore the effects of quantity of exposure and proficiency on L2 contextual word learning. Participants were Chinese learners of English with different English proficiency levels. For each novel word, there were four high constraint sentences with the critical word at the end of the sentence. Learners read sentences and made semantic relatedness judgment afterwards, with ERPs recorded. Results showed that in the high constraint condit...

The present study investigated the relative importance of phonological short-term memory (PSTM) a... more The present study investigated the relative importance of phonological short-term memory (PSTM) and lexical knowledge for second language (English) vocabulary learning in Chinese-English bilinguals. To clarify the conjoined influence of two factors, we distinguished PSTM into serial order STM (measured by serial order reconstruction task) and item STM (tested by delayed single nonword repetition), and nonwords were manipulated in phoneme familiarity (English nonwords and mixed nonwords). Participants are all Chinese native speakers who learn English as a second language with medium proficiency. The paradigm of picture-nonword pairs was adopted in this research. Using a learning way of auditory presentation and speech output, Experiment 1 demonstrated that nonword repetition and lexical knowledge are two independent predictors of familiar nonword learning; as for unfamiliar nonwords, lexical knowledge and serial order STM measurement independently predicted its performance. Since the...

Acta Psychologica, 2015

This paper presents an experiment that investigated the effects of L2 proficiency and sentence co... more This paper presents an experiment that investigated the effects of L2 proficiency and sentence constraint on semantic processing of unknown L2 words (pseudowords). All participants were Chinese native speakers who learned English as a second language. In the experiment, we used a whole sentence presentation paradigm with a delayed semantic relatedness judgment task. Both higher and lower-proficiency L2 learners could make use of the high-constraint sentence context to judge the meaning of novel pseudowords, and higherproficiency L2 learners outperformed lower-proficiency L2 learners in all conditions. These results demonstrate that both L2 proficiency and sentence constraint affect subsequent word learning among second language learners. We extended L2 word learning into a sentence context, replicated the sentence constraint effects previously found among native speakers, and found proficiency effects in L2 word learning.

Frontiers in psychology, 2017

Previous studies have found quantity of exposure, i.e., frequency of exposure (Horst et al., 1998... more Previous studies have found quantity of exposure, i.e., frequency of exposure (Horst et al., 1998; Webb, 2008; Pellicer-Sánchez and Schmitt, 2010), is important for second language (L2) contextual word learning. Besides this factor, context constraint and L2 proficiency level have also been found to affect contextual word learning (Pulido, 2003; Tekmen and Daloglu, 2006; Elgort et al., 2015; Ma et al., 2015). In the present study, we adopted the event-related potential (ERP) technique and chose high constraint sentences as reading materials to further explore the effects of quantity of exposure and proficiency on L2 contextual word learning. Participants were Chinese learners of English with different English proficiency levels. For each novel word, there were four high constraint sentences with the critical word at the end of the sentence. Learners read sentences and made semantic relatedness judgment afterwards, with ERPs recorded. Results showed that in the high constraint condit...

The present study investigated the relative importance of phonological short-term memory (PSTM) a... more The present study investigated the relative importance of phonological short-term memory (PSTM) and lexical knowledge for second language (English) vocabulary learning in Chinese-English bilinguals. To clarify the conjoined influence of two factors, we distinguished PSTM into serial order STM (measured by serial order reconstruction task) and item STM (tested by delayed single nonword repetition), and nonwords were manipulated in phoneme familiarity (English nonwords and mixed nonwords). Participants are all Chinese native speakers who learn English as a second language with medium proficiency. The paradigm of picture-nonword pairs was adopted in this research. Using a learning way of auditory presentation and speech output, Experiment 1 demonstrated that nonword repetition and lexical knowledge are two independent predictors of familiar nonword learning; as for unfamiliar nonwords, lexical knowledge and serial order STM measurement independently predicted its performance. Since the...

Acta Psychologica, 2015

This paper presents an experiment that investigated the effects of L2 proficiency and sentence co... more This paper presents an experiment that investigated the effects of L2 proficiency and sentence constraint on semantic processing of unknown L2 words (pseudowords). All participants were Chinese native speakers who learned English as a second language. In the experiment, we used a whole sentence presentation paradigm with a delayed semantic relatedness judgment task. Both higher and lower-proficiency L2 learners could make use of the high-constraint sentence context to judge the meaning of novel pseudowords, and higherproficiency L2 learners outperformed lower-proficiency L2 learners in all conditions. These results demonstrate that both L2 proficiency and sentence constraint affect subsequent word learning among second language learners. We extended L2 word learning into a sentence context, replicated the sentence constraint effects previously found among native speakers, and found proficiency effects in L2 word learning.