ESL Lexical Inferencing for the Unknown Words in Newspaper Editorials at Advanced Level

Abstract

The study aims at exploring the inferential behaviours of the ESL learners in generating the meanings of the unknown words faced in reading editorials of newspapers. It further notices the impact of instructional treatment on the use of knowledge sources and their relationship with success, the effect of syntactic property of the unknown words, and the difficulties faced in lexical inferencing while interacting with a text. The theoretical framework of knowledge sources adopted in the study was given by Bengeleil and Paribakht (2004). Data were collected through introspective verbal protocols and observation. The study used the texts of the editorials published in native newspaper The Washington Post. Flesch Reading Ease Measure was employed to compare readability of the editorials. The study is quasi-experimental which includes pretest, instructional treatment and posttest. It uses Winograd and Hare’s (1988) model of instruction due to its cognitive usefulness. The analysis of selected verbal protocols gave insight to the inferential behaviours of the subjects while using linguistic and non-linguistic knowledge sources in the pursuit of meaning of the unknown words. The instructional treatment had a significant effect on the sources in lexical inferencing. It was found out that the parts of speech of the unknown words had effect on ease or difficulty in deducing their meanings. The study sheds light on various reasons of incorrect inferences. Key words: ESL Reading, Lexical Inferencing, Editorials, Introspection, Linguistic and Non-Linguistic Knowledge Sources, Syntactic Property of Unknown Words