There is general agreement among specialists that lexical competence is at the very heart of communicative competence, the ability to communicate successfully and appropriately. In order to improve communicative competence, it should be emphasized tha...
There is general agreement among specialists that lexical competence is at the very heart of communicative competence, the ability to communicate successfully and appropriately. In order to improve communicative competence, it should be emphasized that using language for meaningful communication, including the appropriate use of language in particular social contexts. Although there has been a shift from the form-oriented approach to the use-oriented approach since the late 1970s, instructions for improving lexical competence are still needed to be improved in ESL settings. Given the focus on Korean English classroom, form-oriented approach still dominates the field.
As a result, it is expected that although some learners can choose appropriate polysemous words in particular contexts, few learners are capable of understanding the interface between polysemous words and sentence structure. Especially, when native speakers use words which have opposite meaning in non-native speakers' mother tongue, learners face more difficulties with understanding the right use of these words than words whose meaning always correspond to their mother tongue. Consequently, learners could make various types of errors.
Most of the error analysis studies conducted in Korea have focused on language transfer and overgeneralization. There have been some studies on noun or verb sentence structures. However, the focus was on particular grammar features such as ‘to infinitive' or ‘gerund'. Studies dealing with lexico-grammar in sentence structure have been hardly conducted.
In lexico-grammar, Korean verb ‘oda(go)' and ‘gada(come)' have influence on the acquisition of the English verb ‘come'. In order to understand the right use of ‘come', we need to know a few principles underlying their uses, since the use of Korean verb ‘oda' and ‘gada' is somewhat different from those of English verb ‘come' and ‘go'. ‘Come' can be translated into both ‘oda' and ‘gada'. Sometimes neither ‘oda' nor ‘gada' can be translated into ‘come'. Due to this difference, Korean learners of English have difficulty learning the right use of ‘come'.
Considering the limitations of previous studies, this study s the results of the ability to use the English verb ‘come'. The ability to use ‘come' was divided into the ability to judge appropriateness of using ‘come' and the ability to distinguish words from ‘come'. Besides, ‘come' was classified into 5 categories according to its various characteristics. The category of ‘basic' is when ‘come' has a meaning of movement, and the category of ‘extension' is when ‘come' describes abstract state. The category of ‘agreement' is when ‘come' can be translated into ‘oda'. When neither ‘oda' nor ‘gada' can be translated into ‘come', the category is named ‘disagreement'. When ‘come' can be translated to ‘gada', the category is named ‘opposite'. The accuracy order of the categories of ‘come' were investigated.
One hundred and twenty one participants, middle school grade 1, 2, 3 and high school grade 1, were divided into three groups according to the result of English proficiency test. Same sentences were used in both the test of the ability to judge appropriateness of using ‘come' and the test of the ability to distinguish words from ‘come'. Because of that, the test of the ability to distinguish words from ‘come' was conducted first. After collecting the test s of the ability to distinguish words from ‘come', the test of the ability to judge appropriateness of using ‘come' was carried out.
The findings are as follows:
First, both the ability to judge appropriateness of using ‘come' and the ability to distinguish words from ‘come' were increased in the categories of ‘extension' and ‘disagreement' according to leaners' English proficiency. In the category of ‘opposite', the ability to use ‘come' was stable regardless of learners' English proficiency. This is because the category of ‘opposite' could be affected by learners' mother tongue.
Second, qualitative analysis was conducted in order to investigate error patterns of the ability to use ‘come'. It was found that learners chose distractors more often in the category of ‘extension' than in those of ‘basic'. Also learners chose distractors more often in the category of ‘disagreement' than in those of both ‘agreement' and ‘opposite'. In terms of the notion of prototype theory and network model, it is possible that learners may regard distractors as the appropriate form if they consider that some extended meanings of distractors are similar to those of ‘come'.
Third, according to the five categories of ‘come', the accuracy order was found: ‘basic―agreement' > ‘extension―agreement' > ‘extension―disagreement' > ‘basic/extension―opposite'. There was not a significant difference between the three groups in the category of ‘opposite'. It means that learners' mother tongue may affect the ability to use the English verb ‘come'.
Several pedagogical suggestions were drawn from these findings. First, teachers should provide various examples and explanations to learners. Otherwise, similar extended meaning of words may cause learners to make errors on the right use of words. Second, even many advanced learners end in failure acquiring native-like lexical competence. It seems that it is because most learners are not capable to use words in line with the purpose of use, context or pragmatic situation. Therefore, teachers should help learners bring pragmatic situation to their mind and also provide them various examples of extended images of words together with context in dealing with the complexity of lexico-grammar. Third, in order to help learners make less errors, teachers should be well aware of language transfer. Teachers should provide learners explicit explanation on words whose meaning do not correspond to those of learners' mother tongue.
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