Verbal Association by Chinese and American Students as a Function of Word Frequency and Mode of Presentation

Abstract

Associations were obtained from 40 Ss each at National Taiwan University and the University of Maryland to words presented either vocally or in writing. The words varied in frequency of occurrence for both languages. American Ss produced more associations than the Taiwanese Ss under all conditions. In both samples number of associations increased with frequency of the stimulus words. Printed Chinese, however, enjoyed a significant advantage over spoken Chinese in evoking associations to infrequent words. This finding, which did not obtain for the English words, was attributed to (a) more frequent exposure of Taiwanese to low frequency words in print than in speech and (b) increased identifiability of infrequent Chinese words when printed. Implications for more effective communication between the two language communities were discussed.