Second language word associations of Turkish adult learners of english

This study investigates L2 word associations of Turkish adult learners in terms of lexical relations and word class selections. Namely, the research is based on the forms and meanings of word associations of L2 learners. To this effect, Jung's Word Association Test (WAT) was conducted with careful consideration of prompt words to 26 ELT students who are studying at the 4th class at Çağ University. The results of WAT were classified into 4 categories in terms of lexical relations and divided into 3 categories in terms of word classes. The results indicated that nouns were dominant in L2 learners? mental lexicon and for verbs syntagmatic and for nouns paradigmatic associations had the highest rate. In view of these results, further suggestions for making use of word associations in and out of classroom setting are made in the hope that vocabulary learning and teaching can be improved.