WordNet and the Organization of Lexical Memory

Mastering vocabulary is a major component of foreign language learning, and a better understanding of the mental lexicon should facilitate the development of better instructional strategies. A sampling of psycholinguistic research into the organization of semantic memory in bilinguals suggests that much more is involved in acquiring a second vocabulary than simply matching new words with concepts already lexicalized in the first language. The semantic relations among groups of words can be very different in two languages. How an accomplished bilingual maintains two different relational structures in semantic memory is not clear, but it is clear that learners need assistance in mastering semantic relations as well as semantic denotations. WordNet, an on-line lexical database for English based on psycholinguistic principles, provides a description of the goal for this relational part of the language learning task. It is suggested that semantic networks like Word-Net would be valuable aids in teaching second language learners the semantic structures of an unfamiliar language.

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