CATEGORY PROMPT TASK AND REACTION TIME TO LEXICAL MEANING: AN INVESTIGATION OF IRANIAN EFL LEARNERS' LEXICAL KNOWLEDGE IN L1 AND L2

The present study aimed to investigate Category Prompt Task and Reaction Time to lexical meaning, also to investigate the effect of CP task on Iranian EFL learners' lexical knowledge in L1 and L2. This study tried to seek answer to two questions: whether the Reaction Time to lexical meaning in using the Category Prompt Task is different in Iranian upper-intermediate EFL learners' L1 and L2. To find answer to the targeted question, 20 upper-intermediate EFL learners at institute level participated in the experiments of the study. They were selected from among a population of upper-intermediate learners via an OPT test score of at least one standard deviation below the mean and were randomly divided into two groups of experimental (L2) and control (L1). They were provided with two English lexical categories and then they were asked to recognise, orally from a list, the correct word which is the member of the categories. This experiment was repeated with the participants' mother tongue equivalents of the categories and their corresponding member lists. In both cases, the reaction time to recognize the category was recorded. The data collected from the experiment of the study were analyzed via applying an independent samples t-test between the Reaction Time scores of the experimental and control group of the study. It was concluded that the participants were quicker in L1 lexical meaning recognition than L2.