Lexical inferencing as a generation effect for foreign language vocabulary learning

Prior research suggests that second language (L2) vocabulary learning often occurs through lexical inferencing (translations based on context), but there has been less emphasis on how lexical inferencing compares with other methods of L2 word learning. The present study compared lexical inferencing to simply studying word lists for L2 learning. A secondary goal was to determine whether any effect of inferencing is mediated by the generation effect of memory, a phenomenon wherein generated information (inferencing) is remembered better than obtained information (reading). Across four experiments, participants read English sentences with embedded Swahili words and were asked either to infer the word meaning using context or were provided with translations before reading the sentence (reading condition). In contrast to our initial hypotheses, the inference condition resulted in lower rates of retention compared with the reading condition. In addition, the data suggest a number of differences between lexical inferencing and the generation effect, that argue against the proposal that lexical inferencing operates as a type of generation effect.