Cognates between Theory and Practice : a Study on Recognition and Use of English-Romanian Cognates by Romanian EFL Learners

Details

Supervisors

Gaëtanelle Gilquin

Faculty

Faculté de philosophie, arts et lettres

Degree label

Master [120] en linguistique

Abstract

Cognates are studied through a variety of paradigms from psycholinguistics to Second Language Acquisition.In historical linguistics they have offered valuable answers about language contact and language evolution. In psycholinguistics, cognates are used in studies to investigate the organization of the mental lexicon in order to understand how languages are stored and accessed in the brains of bilinguals and multilinguals. In SLA studies, cognates are usually interesting in understanding how L1 influences the acquisition of other languages and how cross-linguistic similarities impact language learning. There are many studies documenting the cognate facilitation effect or the cognate advantage and many linguists agree that cognates can help build vocabulary learning. Some authors however have expressed scepticism about their real positive effect, this in connection to their counterparts or false friends which are sources of errors. In the present thesis, in order to investigate the recognition and use of cognates by L1 Romanian learners of EFL, a series of experiments using different stimuli lists and different types of tasks were conducted. Three different groups of participants with different ages and levels of proficiency took part in three separate experiments.One experiment contained a task in the auditory recognition mode and the others were pen and paper tests using written stimuli only. Findings are in line with the theoretical principles and aspects discussed in the thesis.The cognate facilitation effect was documented for all groups of participants. The post-tests also revealed that explicit cognate instruction and cognate based strategies can have a positive effect on vocabulary learning.These findings reinforce the growing trend that encourages the use of such strategies.