英語の音声単語認知におけるトップダウン処理 : 熟達度およびリスニング方略指向性の関係から

This study aimed to identify the effects of top-down processing on learners of English through the relationship with proficiency and listening strategy orientation. Specifically, it explored the results of Yamauchi’s (2022) case study with a larger sample. Previous studies obtained inconsistent findings about the effects of top-down processing on a foreign language listening learner’s word recognition task. Additionally, the relationship between the top-down processing and the learners’ orientation toward strategy use has not been thoroughly examined. The participants were 334 first-year university students. They responded to the English listening strategy scale (Goto & Yamauchi, 2016) as well as the word recognition task developed by Field (2004) and prepared by Yamauchi et al. (2016). In the word recognition task, the participants typed only the last words of a dictated series of word sets, some of which included meaningful connections between the words. Findings indicated that the participants with lower and higher proficiency levels tended to recognize the target words correctly. In contrast, more middle proficiency level learners answered the task with substituted words triggered by preceding contextual words. The Markov chain Monte Carlo methods showed that the English proficiency and orientation toward strategies utilizing grammatical knowledge affected the use of substituted words. The present results did not replicate Yamauchi’s (2022) finding that the participants who had an orientation toward strategies using background knowledge tended to answer the task with substituted words. It suggested the need for experiments with a broader range of proficiency levels. Future studies might examine the top-down effects of more practical listening comprehension tasks with larger contextual information to obtain additional helpful information.