IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/sagope/v15y2025i1p21582440251321974.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Advanced EFL Learners’ Development in Written Morphologically Defined Words

Author

Listed:
  • Xixiang Lou

Abstract

EL1 learners’ receptive morphological words (root, inflected, and derived words) develop on different scales, but whether they develop similarly in EFL learners’ language production is still unknown and deserves an examination. The answer may provide a clue to theoretical controversy about whether language learners’ morphologically defined words are identical in identity and learnability and whether their productive vocabulary grows constantly. This study uses lexical frequency profile analysis to explore the developmental trends of advanced EFL learners’ ( n  = 299) morphologically defined words in writing across four consecutive semesters. The results indicate that root words are much more significant in both amount and percentage in all four semesters than inflected and derived words, and infected words are much lower than root words but greater than derived words. Over time, the three morphologically defined words go along different development trajectories.

Suggested Citation

  • Xixiang Lou, 2025. "Advanced EFL Learners’ Development in Written Morphologically Defined Words," SAGE Open, , vol. 15(1), pages 21582440251, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:sagope:v:15:y:2025:i:1:p:21582440251321974
    DOI: 10.1177/21582440251321974
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/21582440251321974
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/21582440251321974?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:sagope:v:15:y:2025:i:1:p:21582440251321974. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.