Paper for publication taken from my MA research project. (zip file, PDF).

Research into vocabulary learning has found that Semantic Category Effects (SCE) (HakkiErten and Tekin, 2008; Finkbeiner and Nicol, 2003) hinder retention when words are learnt in semantically related categories. Other variables such as a word’s concreteness and word class have also been found to change learnability. In this study young Japanese learners (n82, average age 12) were tested to see what effect manipulating Concreteness, Syntactic Class and Semantic Relationship had on learnability. Statistical analysis showed that previous studies’ predictions about the effect of each variable had on learnability were generally confirmed.

How do Semantic Category Effects, Words of Different Levels of Concreteness and Syntactic Class Affect Vocabulary Retention in Young Asian EFL Learners