Semantic Prosody and its Effect on EFL learners’ Lexical Cohesion

Abstract

The first part of the study focused on the notion of semantic prosody (SP). It was demonstrated that SP should become an integral part of dictionary definitions to distinguish near-synonyms. The second part of the study examined presenting SP of near-synonyms and its effect on learners’ lexical cohesion in an English as a foreign language (EFL) context. To achieve this, three male intact classes at advanced level were selected. Two of these classes were randomly selected as experimental groups (A & B) and another one as a control group. Experimental group A was provided with regular teaching of SP of near-synonymous lexical items through the data-driven learning (DDL) approach. Experimental group B was only informed of SP of the same lexical items. However, the control group was taught traditionally without being exposed to the concept of SP. In order to measure lexical cohesion, pretests and posttests of task 2 of IELTS writing examination were administered before and immediately after the study. One-way ANOVA and Post-hoc Tukey Test were used to compare means of test scores between groups. The significant effect of semantic prosody on lexical cohesion was confirmed. Finally, implications on integrating SP into language pedagogy were discussed.