Learning Associates of Known Words: Effects of Semantic Relationship and Similarity on Memorization and Retrieval

Abstract

This research examined effects of presenting related words and target words at the same time in intentional vocabulary learning, focusing on a case where the related words share the same category as the target words and are already known to learners. As few previous studies have taken into account whether semantic relatedness of related words are closer to target words or not, this comparison was also integrated into the experimental design of this work. In an experiment, participants intentionally learned a total of 30 words through three methods, 10 words presented alone, 10 provided with closely related words, and the other 10 given with slightly related words. The immediate posttest and the delayed posttest, which was conducted 1 week after learning the words, consisted of two parts. The first part required participants to recall L1 translations of target words, while the second part also provided known, related words as clues. The results indicated the facilitative effect of presenting related words as clues for retrieval, suggesting that learning associates of known words is an effective method for learning vocabulary.