John P Racine

The TESOL Encyclopedia of English Language Teaching explores the theoretical and practical aspects of English language instruction by providing an essential, go-to reference resource for educators, professionals, researchers, and students worldwide. Over 750 entries written by leading practitioners and scholars from around the globe reflect the collaborative efforts of a truly international team of editors and advisory board members. The Encyclopedia is arranged thematically and entries are ordered A-Z within each of these themes. Fourteen key topic areas are covered:

This chapter presents a diachronic, corpus-based study of mainstream American rap. By analyzing lyrical themes and conducting a genre analysis of lyrics from the past and present, the author demonstrates that expressions of dissatisfaction and dissent have all but disappeared from contemporary American rap. Didactic messages from “authentic”, streetwise artists of the past have been replaced with more introspective lyrical content from current artists. The data indicates that while the focus of lyrical themes and genres has shifted over the years, the demographics of the artists who create them has not. The most influential rap artists have remained almost exclusively Black and male from the birth of rap music until today.

This chapter presents a diachronic corpus-based study of mainstream American rap. By analyzing lyrical themes and conducting a genre analysis of lyrics from the past and present, the author demonstrates that expressions of dissatisfaction and dissent have all but disappeared from contemporary American rap. Didactic messages from “authentic”, streetwise artists of the past have been replaced with more introspective lyrical content from current artists. The data indicates that while the focus of lyrical themes and genres has shifted over the years, the demographics of the artists who create them has not. The most influential rap artists have remained almost exclusively Black and male from the birth of rap music until today.

In this paper, two word association (WA) studies are presented in support of recent arguments against the use of native-speaker (NS) norms in WA research. In Study 1, first-language (L1) and second-language (L2) WA norms lists were developed and compared to learner responses as a means of measuring L2 proficiency. The results showed that L2 norms provided a more sensitive measure of L2 lexical development than did traditional NS norms. Study 2 was designed to test the utility of native norms databases in predicting the primary WA responses of Japanese learners to high-frequency English cues. With the exception of only extremely frequent cues, it was shown that native norms were not successful in predicting learner responses. The results of both studies are discussed in terms of cultural and linguistic differences, geographic distance, and dissimilarities in word knowledge between respondent populations. Finally, a proposal is made for the construction of a Japanese WA database of En...

JALT member Joseph Poulshock recently posted a video entitled “How do humans acquire language?” to the extensive reading (ER) website BeeOasis.com. In it, he describes his ALBUM Theory (acquire language by understanding messages), by which he means that the comprehension of input―for example, through ER―is the best way to acquire a second language. The video prompted an online discussion in which a number of JALT members exchanged ideas about the acquisition of vocabulary, the role of ER in the acquisition of various aspects of word knowledge, and the relative importance of input to the language acquisition process. An abbreviated version of this conversation is presented here.

This study utilizes a word association (WA) paradigm to infer similarities and differences between processes used to access the mental lexicons of native speakers (NS) and Japanese nonnative speakers of English (NNS). Three hypotheses were examined: a) grammatical word stimuli will elicit proportionately fewer paradigmatic responses than will content words; b) The proportion of phonologically-related responses will increase when stimuli are presented aurally rather than in written format;and c) NNS responses to infrequent words will not differ from responses to common words if a loan word equivalent exists in their first language (L1). Generally speaking, results concurred with established findings. Where results failed to validate the hypotheses, cognitive models are outlined to account for the data. In particular, a process model involving access to explicit knowledge of grammar rules is presented to account for the fact that NNS were less likely to respond to grammatical word sti...

A cognitive process model for word associations involving grammatical word stimuli (Racine, 2008) is re-examined and a more comprehensive model is proposed. The new model incorporates two previously unutilized word association (WA) response categories: rule-generated responses (RG), derived from respondents’ explicit knowledge of grammar rules; and label-generated responses (LG), derived from knowledge of word class categories. To test this model, a WA study involving native English speakers (NS) and Japanese non-native speakers (NNS) was conducted. Results showed that, with the exception of articles, grammatical word stimuli elicited fewer paradigmatic responses from NNS than from NS. Although no significant differences were observed in the proportions of RG or LG responses between NS and NNS, an argument is made for the utility of these response categories in further WA studies. Findings are discussed in terms of a number of contributing factors including the differences in the me...

In their paper, Meara and Olmos Alcoy (2010) attempted to find a means of estimating productive second language (L2) vocabulary size based on the premise that many known lexical items simply do not appear in learner-produced texts. To do so, they borrowed an ...

This paper traces the roots of modern word association (WA) research from its origins in 17th Century empiricist philosophy, through the present day and beyond. It will be demonstrated that the first scientific applications of word association methodology appeared in the late 1800s and early 1900s as psychometric measures. With the onset of Behaviourism in the mid-20th Century, WA became firmly established as a methodology for experimental psychologists and applied linguists. The subsequent cognitive revolution allowed researchers greater depth of theorization and led to innovations in the categorization of responses and to the development of cognitive models in contemporary studies. Considerations for future research are suggested. These include the application of methodologies from cognitive psychology and an illustration of theoretical issues to be further examined. この論文は１７世紀の経験論的哲学を起源とする語連想研究の歴史、現在およびその未来について考察するものである。 語連想の方法論の最初の科学的な活用は１８００年代後半から１９００年代初頭に精神測定の評価基準として登場することを実例によ...

As a research method, priming has long been applied to studies in cognitive psychology and psycholinguistics as a means of inferring the existence of processes underlying the storage, access, and retrieval of vocabulary in the lexicon.  To date, however, very few applied linguists have utilized this methodology in their research. This is especially true in word association (WA) studies where there have been very few applications of priming methods, despite the fact that these are easily accommodated within the WA test format. Priming effects are in fact so robust that researchers should be able to elicit them through tasks preceding WA trials and via the manipulation of cue order. On the other hand, recent WA studies have demonstrated that subject responses remain relatively stable across languages and tasks (Fitzpatrick, 2007; Fitzpatrick & Racine, 2014).

To examine the competing hypotheses that stem from these findings, three studies were performed to test the influence of cue order and directed association tasks on L1 and L2 WA responses. The purpose of these studies was to determine whether, and to what extent, subjects continue to respond in accordance with their individual response profiles despite these manipulations. The poster illustrates which participants’ responses (NS or NNS) showed significant priming effects and under what conditions. Methodological issues are discussed and future research is suggested.

Recent evidence shows that word association (WA) responses remain quite stable across languages. Indeed, it appears that with increased second language proficiency, respondents’ L2 association profiles begin to more closely reflect their own L1 profiles, rather than native-speaker norms (Fitzpatrick, 2007, 2009; Fitzpatrick & Racine, 2014). This finding, however, conflicts with one of the long-held assumptions underpinning the experimental design of WA research: namely, that tasks undertaken by respondents immediately preceding WA trials and the order in which cues are presented will significantly affect response patterns.  In fact, many researchers routinely create multiple versions of WA tests to ensure that the possible influence of priming effects from cue order is minimized.

Despite a long history of priming research both in applied psycholinguistics and in cognitive psychology, to date very few studies have been conducted to determine the precise effects of priming on WA test results. For this reason, two studies were performed to examine the influence of cue order and prior tasks (directed association tasks, to be precise) on WA responses in English both as a first and second language. The purpose of these studies was to determine whether, and to what extent, respondents continue to adhere to their individual response patterns despite these manipulations. The poster illustrates which participants’ responses (NS of NNS) showed significant priming effects and under what conditions. Results are discussed in terms of second language proficiency and response profile strength.  Methodological issues are examined and future research is suggested.

Fitzpatrick, T. (2007). Word association patterns: Unpacking the assumptions. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 17, 319-331. doi: 10.1111/j.1473-4192.2007.00172.x

Fitzpatrick, T. (2009). Word association profiles in a first and second language: Puzzles and problems. In T. Fitzpatrick & A. Barfield (Eds.), Lexical processing in second language learners (pp. 38-52). Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters.

Fitzpatrick, T., & Racine, J. P. (2014). Using learners' L1 word association profiles as an alternative to native speaker norms. Paper presented at the AILA World Congress, Brisbane, Australia.