Effects of EFL Learning on L1 Chinese Lexis

Wen Kong, Quan-Jiang Guo, Yin-Yan Dong and Xuesong (Andy) Gao
Additional contact information
Wen Kong: Department of English, Changzhou University, Changzhou 213100, China
Quan-Jiang Guo: College of Science and Technology, Ningbo University, Ningbo 315211, China
Yin-Yan Dong: College of Science and Technology, Ningbo University, Ningbo 315211, China
Xuesong (Andy) Gao: School of Education, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 23, 1-13

Abstract: The advocates of multi-competence theory argue that the L2 learners’ language system is unique because of the crosslinguistic influences of both languages. However, the influence of a foreign language on the learner’s L1 has not been extensively investigated. In order to address the gap, the present study sought to investigate the effects of EFL learning on written L1 Chinese at the lexical level. Two studies were conducted on 200 abstracts of MA theses written in Chinese, half on English literature written by Chinese-L1 English majors (EMs), and half on Chinese literature written by Chinese-L1 Chinese majors (CMs). The first study investigated the differences between the two groups in terms of the frequencies of nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, prepositions, and conjunctions in the abstracts. The second study examined the differences in the lexical complexity and diversity between the two groups. The results reveal 12 significant differences in 27 investigated word classes and subclasses, as well as significant differences in lexical complexity, but no significant difference in lexical diversity. The identified differences are discussed from a multi-competence perspective.

Keywords: crosslinguistic influence; multi-competence; backward transfer; lexical complexity and diversity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/23/13496/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/23/13496/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:23:p:13496-:d:696187

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().