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. 2023 Jul 19:14:1188909.
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1188909. eCollection 2023.

The cross-linguistic comparison of perceptual strength norms for Korean, English and L2 English

Jonghyun Lee  1 , Jeong-Ah Shin  2
Affiliations

The cross-linguistic comparison of perceptual strength norms for Korean, English and L2 English

Jonghyun Lee et al. Front Psychol. .

Abstract

This study aimed to establish perceptual strength norms for 1,000 words in the languages of Korean, English, and L2 English, in order to investigate the similarity and difference across languages as well as the influence of the environment on semantic processing. The perceptual strength norms, which are a collection of word profiles that summarize how a word is experienced through different sensory modalities including the five common senses and interoception, provide a valuable tool for testing embodiment cognition theory. The results of this study demonstrated that language users had parallel sensory experiences with concepts, and that L2 learners were also able to associate their sensory experiences with linguistic concepts. Additionally, the results highlighted the importance of incorporating interoception as a sensory modality in the development of perceptual strength norms, as it had a negative correlation with both vision and concreteness. This study was the first to establish norms for Korean and L2 English and directly compare languages using the identical and translation-equivalent word list.

Keywords: abstract concept; conceptualization; cross-linguistic; embodiment cognition; grounded cognition; interoception; perceptual strength; second language processing.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Violin plots showing the distribution of perceptual strength ratings for each sensory modality. Black lines and boxes inside indicating boxplots. The three groups have similarity in shape and distributions. Top: L1 Korean. Middle: L1 English. Bottom: L2 English.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Radar charts for thermal (‘yel-uy’) and hard (‘elyewun’) in L1 English, L2 English and L1 Korean.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Radar charts for calm (‘chapwunhan’) and feel (‘nukkita’) in L1 English, L2 English and L1 Korean. In feel, compared to L1 English, L2 English and L1 Korean have a similar shape and occupy a wider area.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Radar charts for bible and book in L1 English, L2 English and L1 Korean. For bible, the haptic strength of L2 English and L1 Korean is about 1, but it is 3 or higher in book.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Radar charts for cake in L1 English, L2 English and L1 Korean.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Radar charts for audio, blues and musical in L1 English, L2 English and L1 Korean.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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