CHAPTER 3: DEVELOPMENT OF THE GUESSING FROM CONTEXT TEST
3.2 Clues for Guessing from Context
This section reviews what types of clues have been found to be available to L2 learners when they guess the meaning of unknown words from context. It also discusses why the GCT measures knowledge of grammar and discourse.
Carton (1971) logically proposed three categories for cues1 that can be used in guessing from context: intra-lingual, inter-lingual, and extra-lingual. Intra-lingual cues come from knowledge of the target language, including morphological, syntactic, and phonological knowledge. Inter-lingual cues are based on knowledge of languages other than L2 (L1 and others) including loan words and cognates. Finally, extra-lingual (or contextual) cues include knowledge of the world.
Borrowing the tripartite taxonomy of cue types from Carton (1971), Haastrup
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(1985, 1987, 1991) empirically investigated how L2 learners guessed from context based on introspective and retrospective data from Danish learners of English. The results indicated that each of the three cue types could be subdivided into two as shown in Table 2. The taxonomy is not mutually exclusive.
Table 2. Taxonomy of cue types by Haastrup (1985, 1987, 1991)
Cue type Sub-category Description
Contextual 1. The co-text One or two words from the immediate co-text; the immediate co-text; a specific part of the co-text beyond the sentence of the test word; unspecified use of the co-text.
2. Knowledge of the world
Factual knowledge; attitudes; beliefs; prejudices.
Intralingual 1. The test word Phonology/orthography; morphology; lexis; word class; collocations; semantics.
2. The syntax of the sentence
Structure of the sentence in which the test word occurs.
Interlingual 1. The L1 (Danish)
Phonology; orthography; morphology; collocations; semantics.
2. Ln (other than L1 and L2)
General reflections; morphology; lexis; semantics.
Using the think-aloud method with 10 ESL university students, de Bot, et al. (1997) identified eight knowledge sources used in guessing which varied widely in frequency of use. Table 3 presents the eight types of knowledge in descending order of frequency (how often each knowledge source was used).
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Table 3. Taxonomy of knowledge sources by de Bot, et al. (1997)
Knowledge source Description Frequency
(%) Sentence-level grammatical
knowledge
Parts of speech in a sentence. 34.6
Word morphology English derivations and inflections. 15.0
Punctuation Punctuation and capitalisation rules. 11.2
World knowledge Knowledge of the theme and topic. 9.3
Discourse and text Information from other parts of the text.
3.7
Homonymy Phonetic similarities between the
target word and another word (e.g., melt and smell).
3.7
Word associations Words associated with the target word
(e.g., accommodation and hotel
reservation).
2.8
Cognates Word cognates, mainly between
English and French in their study.
1.9
Unknown - 17.8
As shown in Table 3, some knowledge sources were used more frequently than others. The most popular two sources were sentence-level grammar and morphology, accounting for half of the sources used for guessing.
Based on introspective and retrospective data from 21 intermediate ESL learners, Nassaji (2003) identified five knowledge sources. Table 4 presents these knowledge sources in descending order of frequency (how often each knowledge source was used). It also provides the percentage of successful guesses including partial success for each knowledge source.
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Table 4. Taxonomy of knowledge sources by Nassaji (2003)
Knowledge source Description Frequency (%) Success (%)*
World Knowledge of the content or the topic
that goes beyond what is in the text.
46.2 54.2
Morphological Knowledge of word formation and word structure, including word derivations, inflections, word stems, suffixes, and prefixes.
26.9 57.1
Grammatical Knowledge of grammatical functions or syntactic categories such as verbs, adjectives, or adverbs.
11.5 41.7
Discourse Knowledge about the relation between or within sentences and the devices that make connections between the different parts of the text.
8.7 55.6
L1 Knowledge of similar words in the L1. 6.7 42.9
*Percentage of successful guesses
As shown in Table 4, some knowledge sources were used more frequently than others, which supports the findings of de Bot, et al. (1997). It should be noted that the frequency of world knowledge was widely different: While de Bot, et al. found that their participants relied heavily on grammatical (34.6%) and morphological knowledge (15.0%) followed by world knowledge (9.3%), Nassaji’s participants used world knowledge most frequently (46.2%) followed by morphological (26.9%) and grammatical knowledge (11.5%). This may have been due to the nature of context, supporting Nation’s (2001, p.257) argument that background clues are not always present. Table 4 also shows that the percentages of success ranged between 41.7% and 57.1%, suggesting that the probability of success in guessing might vary according to the knowledge source used.
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largely agree on the types of clues that L2 learners use in guessing. Table 5 summarises the clues identified by these studies with the aim of showing the overlap among them. The overlapping categories are listed in the same row; for example, “The co-text” used by Haastrup, “Discourse and text” and “Punctuation” used by de Bot, et al., and “Discourse knowledge” used by Nassaji refer to similar notions.
Table 5. Summary of clue types
Haastrup
(1985, 1987, 1991) de Bot, et al. (1997) Nassaji (2003)
Type 1 The co-text Discourse and text
Punctuation
Discourse knowledge
Type 2 Knowledge of the world
World knowledge World knowledge
Type 3 The test word Word morphology
Word associations Homonymy
Morphological knowledge
Type 4 The syntax of the sentence Sentence-level grammatical knowledge Grammatical knowledge
Type 5 The L1 (Danish) Cognates L1 knowledge
Type 6 L3, L4, etc.
As shown in Table 5, clues for guessing may be categorised into six types. Among those clue types, discourse (Type 1) and grammar (Type 4) clues were selected for the GCT based on the following two criteria:
1. The clue can be taught; and
2. The clue can be used in every context.
The first criterion was set up so that teachers could help learners improve their skill of guessing from context based on the GCT. L1 knowledge (Type 5) and knowledge of another language (Type 6) did not meet this criterion because language teachers are not
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always familiar with their students’ L1s and third languages (L3s).
The second criterion presupposes that clues that are always present in context are more useful than those that are not. World knowledge (Type 2) did not meet this criterion, because world knowledge is not always available especially when learners read about unfamiliar topics. It may also be outside the scope of language teachers because they cannot be familiar with every topic that their students may encounter or know the extent of their students’ world knowledge. Another type of knowledge that did not meet the second criterion was knowledge of the test words. The use of word clues is not always available or helpful. Morphological knowledge cannot be used effectively when an unknown word does not consist of analysable word parts. It has also been pointed out that wrong guesses are typically caused by the misunderstanding of the word forms (Bensoussan & Laufer, 1984; Laufer & Sim, 1985; Nassaji, 2003). For example, Bensoussan and Laufer (1984) reported that some L2 learners wrongly guessed the meaning of outline as ‘out of line’ by breaking it into parts. As Nation (2001, p. 259) suggests, it may be more effective to use word form clues as a supportive aid for checking a guess rather than as a main strategy for guessing.
The GCT focuses on discourse (Type 1) and grammar (Type 4) clues. A discourse clue is a clue found in other parts of the context. A grammar clue refers to the part of speech of the unknown word which makes it possible to analyse the structure of the sentence in which the unknown word is used. There are three reasons for measuring knowledge of these two types of clues on the GCT. First, research has shown that the skills of using discourse clues (e.g., Fukkink & de Glopper, 1998; Kuhn & Stahl, 1998; Walters, 2006) and analysing the grammatical structure in a sentence (e.g., Carpay, 1974; van Parreren, 1975) can be improved by teaching. These two types of knowledge
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are different from other types of knowledge such as L1 and L3 which are difficult to teach.
Second, although grammar and discourse clues may not always be helpful (Beck, et al., 1983; Schatz & Baldwin, 1986), they are present in every context: An unknown word always has a grammatical function in a sentence and is used in discourse. These clues are different from other clues such as morphological and world knowledge which are not always present.
Finally, the studies on procedures for guessing from context essentially underscore the importance of grammar and discourse. For example, Clarke and Nation (1980) proposed a five-step procedure for guessing from context which was later expanded by Nation and Coady (1988) and Nation (1990, 2001). Here are the five steps.
Step 1: Decide on the part of speech of the unknown word.
Step 2: Look at the immediate context (the sentence in which the word is used). Step 3: Look at the wider context (the relationship with other sentences). Step 4: Guess.
Step 5: Check the guess.
In Clarke and Nation’s procedure, Step 1 focuses on grammar clues and Steps 2 and 3 involve discourse clues. The use of background knowledge is not included in their procedure because it is not always available and is less likely to lead to vocabulary learning. The use of word part knowledge is included in Step 5 for checking the guess because word part analysis is sometimes misleading.
A similar procedure was proposed by Williams (1985) who classified the guessing strategy into the following four categories:
1. Work out the unfamiliar word’s part of speech.
2. Search the context for other words that will help you to puzzle out the meaning of the new word.
3. Let those other words throw light on the meaning of the new word. 4. Try your inference, to check that it makes sense.
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In Williams’ procedure, the first strategy focuses on indentifying the part of speech of unknown words. The second strategy deals with discourse clues. Similar to Clarke and Nation’s (1980) procedure, guessing and checking the meaning come last.
For the purpose of guiding teachers to help students guess the meaning of unknown words in classroom activities, Bruton and Samuda (1981) proposed six stages for guessing the meaning of unknown words.
Stage 1: Focusing on the word to guess.
Stage 2: Getting students to guess the meaning of the word. Stage 3: Asking about clues available in the passage.
Stage 4: Justifying the acceptable guesses made by students. Stage 5: Providing the precise meaning of the word.
Stage 6: Providing back-up exercises.
Bruton and Samuda’s guessing strategy is different from other strategies proposed by Clarke and Nation (1980) and Williams (1985) in that guessing comes earlier than finding information for guessing. Despite this difference, Bruton and Samuda suggested that in Stage 3 teachers should make their students find grammar and discourse clues in the passage. For example, in order to guess the meaning of the unknown word neglected in the sentence In the morning, Carter found a letter in the most obvious place of all,
which he had somehow neglected, learners need to recognise the relative pronoun
(which refers to place) and the tense (neglected occurred before found).
This section has reviewed the empirical studies that provided a taxonomy of clues that L2 learners use in guessing from context. Despite different labels for clue types, previouse studies generally agreed on the categorisation of clues. The GCT focused on grammar and discourse clues because they are teachable and usable in every context. These two types of clues are also included in previous studies that proposed a procedure for guessing from context. The subsequent section addressees what is involved in grammar and discourse clues.
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