Incorrect inferences and contextual word learning in English as a second language

When readers encounter new words they may try to infer their meanings from context. Such contextual inferences may be correct or incorrect. This research considered the effect of incorrect meaning inferences on contextual word learning in English as a second language. Chinese speakers encountered 48 novel vocabulary items in informative single-sentence English contexts and were instructed to infer their meanings. They were able to verify their inferences by reviewing dictionary-type definitions at the end of the learning procedure. Participants’ explicit knowledge of the critical vocabulary items was probed using a meaning generation task; their implicit knowledge was examined using a mixed-modality masked repetition priming lexical decision task. The results revealed a differential effect of incorrect inferences on the explicit and implicit knowledge of the vocabulary items. Explicit knowledge of meaning was less accurate after incorrect inferences than after correct inferences, but it was not worse than the knowledge gained when no explicit inference had been made. Implicit knowledge however was not affected by incorrect inferences. Pedagogical and research implications of the study findings are considered.