The Use of Cognate Words and Interlingual Homographs to Investigate the Cross-Linguistics in Second Language Processing in Iran

Abstract

Various investigations have shown that the native language impacts foreign word recognition and this influence is adapted by the dexterity in the nonnative language.  Cognates, words which are similar across two or more languages in some fields signify an interesting, illuminating, and crucial aspect of foreign or second language learning and research. Forty-five (males and females) participants have been randomly chosen and participated in the experiment in Islamic Azad University, Zanjan, Iran, in 2014-2015 school year. The participants’ age ranged from 18 to 28, with a mean age of 21.5 years. The materials were divided into two groups   which include 30 true cognates and 30 false cognates words from 300 words by doing CVR and CVI (Lawshe’s table with index of 88% and 82% respectively) for being reliable and valid. These words have been taught to them, after a week, a test has been prepared about those words. According to the results of T-test for comparing the average marks of learning in every 2 groups can be said that there is a meaningful difference between the scores.   The results show that the students learned true cognate words better than the false cognate words.  The results of this study also confirm the expectations that cognate-based instruction can positively influence in second language acquisition.

Keywords: false and true cognates; L2 structural relationship; second language vocabulary acquisition; teaching through cognates