Associative experiments:direct and indirect experiments

Prepared by:
Essence:
Associative experiment is one of the first projective methods which is based on assumption that
uncontrolled associations are symbolic or direct projection of internal content of consciousness.
This property makes possible to use association experiment to discover and describe affect
complexes.
Procedure:
Recipients (those who are tested) are given a certain set of words-stimuli to give their associative
answers to each stimulus (the first thought, association is significant).
Time is limited: for recipients to catch and write in the first association but not a thought-out
version.
The results then are collected and studied.
Identical answers are counted. Those (that) which are (is) presented in the biggest number forms
the nucleus of the semantic field of a studied concept.
Associations presented in a fewer number form the closest periphery of a concept.
Then follows the associations which form the next layer of the periphery and thus to the
associations which are presented in the fewest number and form the farthest layer of the
periphery.
Types:

Free associative experiment:

recipients are not given any limits for their reactions presenting (as many as they want, in the form
they want. For example: show your associations to the following words);
Directed associative experiment:
recipients are offered to give associations of a certain grammar or semantic class.
Linking associative experiment:
recipients are asked to give several associative responses to each of the given stimuli (for example:
during 20 seconds to give 10 associations).
Association field:
1)nucleus
2)the most frequent words
3)a list of words + 5 adjectives.
There are two general types of associations distinguished:
As for the type of semantics:
1) Objective semantics (which is fixed in dictionaries, encyclopedias and reference books);
2) Subjective (associative meanings of people as peculiarities of their perception of the phenomena
which have their linguistic names; i.e. responses (associations) to the stimuli (lexical representatives
of the phenomena)).
As for the relations of language signs:
1) Syntagmatic
(different grammar classes are joined and thus form a certain basis for future utterance): reflect
speaking relations;
2) Paradigmatic
(of the same grammar class): reflect language relations.

Each experiment could have

-single/multiple
- free/controlled associations.
There are such kinds of associations:
single-response free association (the respondent is asked to write the first word that comes to
his/her mind);
 single-response controlled association (the difference from previous one is that the respondent
is asked to write specific type of association, e.g. synonym or antonym);
multiple-response free association (the respondent could use any number of words);
multiple-response controlled association (almost the same as previous one, but with some
limitations on the type of response).
Type: multiple-response controlled associations
Experiment was hold in April of 1999, in the time of crisis in Kosovo when NATO
defence forces were bombing Yugoslavian objects.
In experiment participated 314 russian and 182 american students. Individual and geografic
differences between universities at the same country were not considered.
Organizers asked to write down 5-10 first nous or 2 words collocations (noun+noun or
adjective+noun) that come to subject's mind to descibe current situation in Yugoslavia.
As the result there was discovered that russian students had more similar answers. Most frequent
associations
from russians: death(39%), war(36%), bomb(31%), fear, refugees, NATO, horror, blood, murder,
hunger;
from americans: war(26%), ethnic(22%), death(21%), refugees, NATO, bomb, sad, genocide,
religion, suffering
Experimental study of syntax
Seminar 5
In linguistics, syntax is the set of rules, principles, and processes that govern the structure
of sentences in a given language, specifically word order. The term syntax is also used to refer to the
study of such principles and processes.
Syntax is the whole of linguistic phenomena that are involved in the building and use of
communicative units.
Experimentation in syntax
devoted to the use of experimental methods, primarily examining acceptability, to explore issues of
interest in the study
of natural language syntax
Syntactic ambiguity, also called amphiboly or amphibology, is a situation where a sentence may
be interpreted in more than one way due to ambiguous sentence structure
The duke yet lives that Henry shall depose
(Henry VI (1.4.30), by Shakespeare)
Henry will depose the duke
the duke will depose Henry
The translators sensitivity
A psycholinguistic experiment
Questions to answer
To what extent do translators direct ambiguity in an experimental situation where its detection
is favoured?
Are sentences in which the ambiguity resides at the deep structure level (DS) more difficult to
process than those in which the ambiguity is at a level closer to the surface (SS)?
Are a translators native language and his higher degree of bilinguism significant factors in his
ability to detect ambiguity?
The experiment:
Task (to translate 24 sentences E F / F E).
Subjects (second year students of a private school; females 17 21 years of age; good language
preparation).
Testing: each group was given a task in their native language; they were made familiar with the
notion of syntactic ambiguity, notion of lexical homonymy (not to look for it).
88 subjects were chosen for the pilot experiment.
Results
 SS ambiguity is not easier to detect than DS one;
There does not seem to be a functional relationship between a translators sensitivity to
ambiguity and his linguistic skills.
Samples of experiments
Prepared by Viktoriya Polishchuk
And Katerina Hrunyk
RUSSIAN ASSOCIATION-COMPARATIVE DICTIONARY
Type: single-response free association
Russian association dictionary includes data from 4 free association experiments that were
hold from 1967 till 2000 with 10-20 year intervals between them. The participants were russian
native speakers.
Russian association experiment (1986-1997)
This association experiment had 3 stages.
Stimuli for the first stage were formed by experiment authors and included 1,277 concepts. For
the 2nd and the 3rd stages stimuli were selected from most frequent reactions of previous stage
and included 2,690 and 2,930 words. The overall number of stimuli 6,624.
The rules
The number of participants was 11,000.
There were 5,000 forms with 100 stimuli in each.
Every participant had 7-10 minutes to fill in the form.
On the basis of this experiment the verbal association network (VAN) was formed.
The Paderborn method
for language teaching, also known as the Paderborn method or Paderborn model is a method
for teaching foreign languages, originally conceived for children's education. It consists in first
teaching a simple language (Esperanto), then two years later teaching a second language.
helps in later learning
Many adults who learnt Esperanto had noticed that they could better understand the grammar
of their own mother tongue and foreign languages and started to think that such a language could
have propaedeutical value in language teaching.
One of them was the Experiment in University of Paderborn
Under the supervision of Helmar Frank, a professor at the Institute of Cybernetics of
Paderborn, two groups of pupils (A and B), both with German as mother tongue, were created in
a primary school.The aim was to prove the propaedeutical value of Esperanto for learning English
The experiment
Group A started to learn English from the third year of study, while group B in the same year
started to learn Esperanto (160 hours);
group B also started to learn English after two years (i.e., in the fifth year of study).
Although group B studied English two years less than group A did, by the seventh year the two
groups reached the same level in English, while in the eighth year of school the English level of
group B was more advanced than that of group A.
The following table summarizes the Paderborn experiment:
The results
The study demonstrated not only that group B gained linguistic skills with English, but also that
group members could use two languages instead of only one.
In addition to cultural gains, the saving of time and resources resulted in an educational saving
as well.
Thank you for attention

xperimentation n Language Teaching

Olena Dvornyak
Oksana Nasarchuk
The management of the experiments aimed at finding out the affectiveness of kinetic techniques
in FLT.
Kinetic techniques as independent elements of teaching are little studied and are hardly used in
the process of studying and teaching. So, the research of the effectiveness of kinetic techniques
while teaching foreign languages is quite up to date.
The system of physical exercises includes:
a complex of physical exercises based on psychosociological interdependance of mental and
physical activities;
a complex of physical exercises based on verbal and kinetic interdependence;
a complex of physical exercises which provides and facilitates the cognitive processes
(perception, memory / memorizing, thinking, sensing etc) and creates positive atmosphere of the
lesson;
a complex of physical exercises of ethnic orientation (the study of traditions, etiquette;
teaching mobile games, played in the English speaking countries; usage of dramatization).
Experiment is a method of cognition, with the help of that method in natural or artificially created
environments under controlled and managed conditions a pedagogical phenomenon is studied,
and new ways of pedagogical tasks and problems solutions are looked for found out.
In order to organize experimental activity aimed at revealing the effectiveness of kinetic
techniques in foreign language teaching a motivational program-purpose approach was used.
Shalaev pointed out that approach consists of:
a tree of purposes;
an executive program;
a managing program.
A sum / whole of purposes is built according to the model:
Want can do get / receive
Want a psychological preparation, readiness of students to study.
Can a technological preparation.
Do the provision of the process of study.
Get result / outcome of the teaching process.
The second step is to find out the preventing barriers / factors:
students lack speaking skills which would enable them to communicate while moving;
psychological factors such as a fear of a language barrier, shyness, emotions and tension;
lack of technological equipment which would provide / create the environment for physical
movement;
teachers are not interested, not motivated to use KT (kinetic techniques) in the process of
teaching;
a theoretical approach prevails over practical / physical techniques.
Each experimental program consisted of the following tasks:
to work out a complex of physical exercises aimed at lexical, and grammatical skills facilitation;
to work out a complex of physical exercises to develop phonetic / pronunciation skills;
to check regularly the impact of physical exercises on the process of FL studying;
to find out negative results and to find the ways out.
The final purposes were :
to process the results of the experiment;
to compare the results of the experiment with the set purposes;
to correct the hypothesis according to the received results;
to describe the experimental design.