فاطمه نعمتی

Emotion has always been the center of attention in the fields of lexical processing and learning. The current study explored the effect of the valence of word and context on the vocabulary learning and word processing by EFL learners. The next aim was to find any difference in the processing of words with varying degrees of valence between native speakers and non-native learners. The participants were taught 135 target words with different degrees of valence (negative, neutral and positive) in nine online sessions. They were then required to perform a multiple-choice definition task for the learning phase and lexical decision task for the processing phase. By analyzing data from the former task, I found a significant effect of word valence and context valence on the vocabulary learning. To find the effectiveness of word valence and context valence on word processing, I analyzed the accuracy and reaction time data from the lexical decision task. The results showed that an increase in the valence of words yielded more accurate responses, but at the cost of slower reaction times. Regarding the influence of context valence on word processing, it was revealed that context valence alone had no significant effect. However, the interaction between word valence and context valence showed that EFL learners processed words with higher valence faster in neutral and positive contexts compared to negative contexts. No difference was found between EFL learners and native speakers in their reaction times with respect to the influence of words. The results of this research can have important implications for material and textbook designers to boost vocabulary learning in EFL learners. In addition, the findings in the processing phase shed light on the influences of valence on word processing in non-native learners.