Journal of English Language and Education
Vol 3. No. 2, December 2017 ISSN : 2460-7142

A STUDY ON THE MORPHOLOGICAL AWARENESS OF INTERMEDIATE LEVEL
ADULT TURKISH EFL LEARNERS

Fatma Aydin1, Ozgur Yildirim 2

12Anadolu University, School of Foreign Languages

1 f.aksoy@anadolu.edu.tr

2 oyildirim@anadolu.edu.tr

Abstract
The purpose of the current study was to investigate morphological awareness of a group of
intermediate level adult Turkish EFL learners. The participants of this study were 168 Turkish first
year university students who were taking intermediate level English courses at a state university in
Turkey. Morphological Awareness Test (MAT) was the data collection instrument of the study. MAT
consists of two sections: Sentence Completion and Word Relation. The Sentence Completion section
consists of 27 multiple-choice test items with the purpose of understanding whether the participants are
aware of the grammatical and lexical functions of some common derivational suffixes in English. In
the Word Relation section, the participants were provided with a list of 20 word pairs (real words), and
asked whether the second word in each pair comes from the first word or not. For analyzing the data,
first the descriptive statistics (mean scores and standard deviations) were calculated for the sections of
MAT and for individual suffixes, then the comparisons between the sections and among the
participants were made by using paired-samples t-tests and one-way repeated measures ANOVAs.
Results of the study indicated that intermediate-level adult Turkish EFL learners participating in the
present study had moderate to high morphological awareness; they performed better in the Word
Relation task than in the Sentence Completion task; and they showed the best performance in the verb
making suffixes.

Keywords: morphological awareness, foreign language reading, EFL, ESL

INTRODUCTION

In a meta-analysis on L2 reading

comprehension and its correlates, Jeon and

Yamashita (2014) list ten key L2 reading

component variables: L2 decoding, L2

vocabulary knowledge, L2 grammar knowledge,

L1 reading comprehension, L2 phonological

awareness, L2 orthographic awareness, L2

listening comprehension, working memory,

metacognition, and L2 morphological awareness.

Koda (2005) maintains that word knowledge is

formulated in specific contexts, from which

extracting lexical information is an acquired

competence that contributes to reading

comprehension, as already mentioned in this

study. However, it is crucial to understand the

internal structure of the words to be able to

extract lexical information. Koda (2005) further

maintains, “in-depth awareness of such structural

awareness can point up the essential

competencies underlying word-knowledge

accretion through reading” (p.71). In this sense,

metalinguistic awareness, which refers to “the

ability to identify, analyze, and manipulate

language forms” (Koda, 2005: 72), plays an

important role in reading development. It is

Journal of English Language and Education
Vol 3. No. 2, December 2017 ISSN : 2460-7142

worth mentioning that metalinguistic awareness

differs from linguistic awareness in the sense

that it requires a general understanding of

language, regardless of its specific details (Koda,

2005). As it is believed that learning to read

involves the recognition of important elements

of spoken language and their relation to the

writing system of a language, and thus

metalinguistic, there has been a boost in research

on metalinguistic awareness recently (Koda,

2005). Morphological knowledge, a type of

intra-word knowledge, and morphological

awareness, a type of metalinguistic awareness,

has gained importance accordingly.

Metalinguistic awareness has been increasingly

found to be beneficial for L2 reading

comprehension (Kieffer & Lesaux, 2012). The

purpose of the current study is to investigate

morphological awareness of a group of

intermediate level adult Turkish EFL learners.

The research question of the study is as follows:

To what extent intermediate-level adult Turkish

EFL learners are aware of syntactic and lexical

functions of certain suffixes in English?

Morphological awareness refers to “the

ability to reflect on and manipulate morphemes

and word formation rules in a language” (Kuo &

Anderson, 2006:161). In other words, it is the

ability to recognize the internal structure of a

word, identify the root and the affixes as well as

being able to form new words applying the word

formation rules in a particular language.

The interest in morphological awareness

and its contribution to reading achievement

surged thanks to the realization that English is a

morphophonemic language. Previous to this

surge in interest in morphological awareness,

phonological awareness, which is defined as the

ability to analyze the sound structure of words

(Apel& Werfel, 2014), was once a major topic in

reading research as its explicit teaching was

found to have a facilitating effect on reading

achievement in the pre-school and early

elementary school years. Therefore, studies

investigating these facilitating effects of

phonological awareness scaled up. However, it

was later noticed that despite the incontestable

contribution of phonemic awareness to literacy

and reading skills, it cannot be identified as the

single most important predictor of reading

achievement as literacy is naturally complex and

multifaceted. Afterwards, it was recognized that

morphological structure, as well as phonological

structure, is an essential component of English

language.

Research shows that in one way or another

learners of a language are likely to benefit from

morphological awareness, which entails its

implementation in a language classroom.

However, since morphological awareness is a

multi-dimensional skill, there are various ways

of instructing morphological awareness in a

language classroom. Apel and Werfel (2014)

describe a variety of tasks to target one or more

aspects of morphological awareness. They note

that it is essential to first model the task and/or

strategy before carrying out the activity or

presenting the use of the strategy.

Journal of English Language and Education
Vol 3. No. 2, December 2017 ISSN : 2460-7142

Segmenting Task: Segmenting activities

are indicated to increase learners’ conscious

awareness of how many meaningful units a

spoken word contains. Learners are instructed

how multi-morphemic words can be segmented

into their smallest meaningful units. When

modeling, the instructor is required to provide

reasons for each unit they divide so that learners

can understand that this segmentation is logical

and each unit has a meaning on their own. For

example, as for the word “longer”, “long” is the

adjective itself and has an independent meaning.

The suffix -er, on the other hand, is added to

most adjectives to make comparisons. In this

way, learners might gain insights into the lexical

and grammatical functions of inflectional and

derivational affixes. In order to emphasize that

the phonology of the word has nothing to do

with the number of meaningful units it is formed

with, it is possible to orally provide examples of

words that can be mono-morphemic (such as

“band”) or multi-morphemic (such as “banned”)

depending on the context.

Word Building Task: It is stated that word

building activities increase learners’ conscious

awareness of how many meaningful units a

written word contains. Such activities involve

forming real words or creating new ones

(pseudo-words) by means of combining base

words or roots with prefixes and/or suffixes.

Learners might be provided with lists of

common roots, prefixes and suffixes and asked

to choose the prefixes and suffixes that can be

attached to a certain root. Once learners tell the

prefixes and/or suffixes that can be attached to a

certain root, they may discuss whether the same

prefix/suffix can be attached to all members of

the same part of speech and whether the spelling

and/or pronunciation of the word changes as a

per class activity.

Word Sorts: Word sorts predominantly

apply to inflectional suffixes and increase

learners’ conscious awareness of changes in

spelling once a suffix is added to a base word.

They are appropriate to teach/practice certain

rules or principles such as plural –s, third person

singular or past tense. The instructor is advised

to write on cards words that can be contrasted in

terms of a certain rule or principle and encourage

learners to sort these cards into categories. As for

plural –s, these categories would be of three

different allomorphs, namely /s/, /z/ and /ız/.

Derivational suffix –ly, which is attached to

adjectives to form adverbs, can also be instructed

accordingly. In this way, learners may be made

aware of the differentiation in spelling when –ly

suffix is added to an adjective.

Direct Instruction of Word Roots: These

activities require explicitly instructing or

encouraging learners to think about the roots of

words which might be borrowed or derived from

other languages, mainly Greek and Latin as for

English. If learners know meanings of the most

common borrowed roots, they might be able to

produce novel words using those roots and/or

guess the meanings of novel words formed with

them. Such an instruction would be relatively

better for older and/or more advanced learners.

Journal of English Language and Education
Vol 3. No. 2, December 2017 ISSN : 2460-7142

This type of activities is especially convenient

for individuals who are interested in conducting

searches within specific texts of such topics as

geography, photography and history, which

might consist of borrowed words in abundance.

Word Relatives: Word relatives aim at

promoting learners’ conscious awareness of

relations among base words or roots and their

inflected and/or derived forms. With this

purpose, the instructor is to enable learners to

recognize that some multi-morphemic words

come from the same base word or root and thus

are related to each other. These words resemble

members of a family in the sense that some of

them may look and sound like another, some

others may look but not sound like another,

while some others may sound but not look like

another, and still some others may neither look

nor sound like another. Therefore, Apel and

Werfel (2014) recommend instructors to use

analogy of family members to help learners

internalize this relationship among multi-

morphemic words and the notion of how they

may differ in terms of look and sound. Learners

may be provided with a base word (such as act)

and asked to brainstorm all the other multi-

morphemic words coming from the same base

word (such as action, actor, actress, acting). The

same process can be repeated with roots (such as

vert, which means “to turn in some direction”)

and learners may come up with all the other

related words (such as introvert, introverted,

extrovert, extroverted, convert, conversion).

METHODS

Participants

The participants of this study were 168

Turkish first year university students who were

taking intermediate level English courses at a

state university in Turkey (age: 18-22). The

participants’ proficiency level had been

determined with a proficiency exam

administered at the beginning of the semester the

data were collected. The participants had been

learning English with an integrated approach to

foreign language learning in which English was

taught in a way in which language skills and sub-

skills are interwoven, and students are

encouraged to learn these skills simultaneously.

Instrument

Morphological Awareness Test (MAT)

was the data collection instrument of the

study.MAT consists of two sections: Sentence

Completion and Word Relation. The Sentence

Completion section consists of 27 multiple-

choice test items. The purpose of this section is

to understand whether the participants are aware

of the grammatical and lexical functions of some

common derivational suffixes in English. The

target words used in this section are pseudo-

words that are appropriate for the morphological

structure of English. The derivational suffixes

used in this test are -tion, -ist, -(i)ty (noun-

making suffixes); -ate, -ize, -fy (verb-making

suffixes); and -ous, -ive, -al (adjective-making

suffixes). These suffixes have been selected for

the test because they are among the very

common suffixes in English (White, Sowel &

Journal of English Language and Education
Vol 3. No. 2, December 2017 ISSN : 2460-7142

Yanagihara, 1999; Fry & Kress, 2006); -tion, -

(i)ty, -ous, -ive and -al are among the most

common 20 suffixes that account for 93 percent

of occurrences according to a research-based list

by White, Sowel, and Yanagihara (1999); and -

ist, -ate, -ize and –fy are among other common

suffixes that account for seven percent of the

occurrences.

The test items in the Sentence Completion

section have been taken from Mahony (1993)

with minor adjustments. The participants were

instructed to choose the best word out of four

options formed with the same root (a pseudo-

word) but different suffixes in order to complete

a sentence with a blank. As can be seen in the

following sample test item (Figure 1), once a

learner knows what functions the derivational

suffixes -ize, -ive, -al and -tion serve, as listed in

the options respectively, they can easily

complete the sentence with the correct form of

the word, indicating that they have some insights

into English derivational morphology.

Figure 1. Sample Test Item from the Sentence
Completion Section of MAT

In the Word Relation section, the

participants were provided with a list of 20 word

pairs (real words), and asked whether the second

word in each pair comes from the first word or

not. As the following sample test items displays

(Figure 2), after reading each word pair the

participants circle YES, if they think the second

word comes from the first word, or NO if they

think the second word does not come from the

first word. Three teachers of the participants

reviewed the words and confirmed that the

participants were familiar with the meaning of

all of the words that were used in this section of

the test. Nine of the word pairs were

morphologically related, while the remaining 11

pairs were morphologically unrelated. Some of

the word pairs in this section were taken from

Mahony (1993), while some others were

designed accordingly by the researcher.

Figure 2. Sample Test Item from the Word
Relation Section of MAT

Expert opinion of four professors from the

English Language Teaching department of the

same university were taken for ensuring the

validity of MAT for this research purpose and

context; Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of MAT

was found to be .86 for this study, which

indicates a high internal reliability.

Data Collection and Analysis

During the administration of MAT, the

participants were not told that the words used in

the Sentence Completion section were pseudo-

words, they were told that the words were new to

them, and they were reminded to use their

knowledge of word endings (suffixes) to be able

accomplish the test. For analyzing the data, first

Journal of English Language and Education
Vol 3. No. 2, December 2017 ISSN : 2460-7142

the descriptive statistics (mean scores and

standard deviations) were calculated for the

sections of MAT and for individual suffixes,

then the comparisons between the sections and

among the participants were made by using

paired-samples t-tests and one-way repeated

measures ANOVAs.

RESULTS

There are 47 items in MAT, 27 of them are

in the Sentence Completion Section and 20 of

them are in the Word Relation Section. So the

highest possible overall score is 47 and the

highest possible scores from the Sentence

Completion and Word Relation sections are 27

and 20, respectively. Table 1 presents the mean

scores for MAT (overall) and its sections.

Overall MAT score (30,67 over 47) indicates

that the participants of the study have a moderate

to high morphological awareness knowledge.

The mean scores for the subsections indicate that

the participants were better in word relation

(17,09 over 20) as compared to Sentence

Completion (13,58 over 27).

Table 1. Mean Scores for MAT
Mean SD
MAT Overall 30,67 6,35
Sentence Completion 13,58 5,20
Word Relation 17,09 2,74

Table 2 and Table 3 present the mean

scores and their comparisons for the three main

suffix groups (noun making, verb making, and

adjective making), the highest possible score for

each group was 9 as there were nine items in

MAT related to each suffix group. The tables

show that the participants got the highest mean

score from the verb making suffixes, and there

was a statistically significant difference between

the mean scores of the noun and adjective

making suffix groups and the verb and adjective

making suffix groups, whereas the difference

between the mean scores of the noun and verb

making suffix groups was not significant.

Table 2. Mean Scores and ANOVA Comparison
of Main Suffix Groups

Mean SD df F p
Noun 4,66 1,88 2,

334
11,88 ,000

Verb 4,85 2,18
Adjective 4,11 2,13

Table 3. Pairwise Comparisons of Main Suffix
Groups

Table 4. Mean Scores and ANOVA Comparison
of Noun Making Suffixes

Mean SD df F p
-tion 2,05 ,818 2,

334
67,63 ,000

-ist 1,48 ,928
-ty 1,13 ,845

Table 5. Pairwise Comparisons of Noun Making
Suffixes

Pair Mean
Differenc

df t p

Noun &
Verb

-,185 167 -
1,23

,219

Noun &
Adjective

,548 167 3,38
7

,001

Verb &
Adjective

,732 167 4,65
9

,000

Pair Mean
Difference

df t p

-tion & -
ist

,565 167 7,114 ,000

-tion & -
ty

,917 167 12,18
3

,000

-ist & -ty ,351 167 4,199 ,000

Journal of English Language and Education
Vol 3. No. 2, December 2017 ISSN : 2460-7142

Table 4 and Table 5 present the mean

scores and their comparisons for the three noun

making suffixes, the highest possible score for

each suffix was 3 as there were three items in

MAT related to each suffix. The tables indicate

that the participants got the highest mean score

from –tion, and it was followed by –ist and –ty,

and there was a statistically significant

difference in all pairwise comparisons.

Table 6 and Table 7 show the mean scores

and their comparisons for the three verb making

suffixes, again the highest possible score for

each suffix was 3 as there were three items in

MAT related to each suffix. The tables indicate

that the participants got the highest mean score

from –ate, and it was followed by –ize and –fy,

and there was a statistically significant

difference in all pairwise comparisons.

Table 6. Mean Scores and ANOVA Comparison
of Verb Making Suffixes

Mean SD df F p
-ate 2,17 ,977 2,

334
87,302

,000
-ize 1,68 1,005
-fy 1,00 ,973

Table 7. Pairwise Comparisons of Verb Making
Suffixes

Table 8 and Table 9 present the mean

scores and their comparisons for the three

adjective making suffixes, and the highest

possible score for each suffix was 3 because

there were three items in MAT related to each

suffix. The tables indicate that the participants

got the highest mean score from –al, and it was

followed by –ive and –ous, and also there was a

statistically significant difference in all pairwise

comparisons.

Table 8. Mean Scores and ANOVA Comparison
of Adjective Making Suffixes

Mean SD df F p
-ive 1,43 ,945 2,

334
18,300

,000
-al 1,61 1,020
-ous 1,07 ,988

Table 9. Pairwise Comparisons of Adjective
Making Suffixes

Pair Mean
Difference

df t p

-ive & -al -,185 167 -
1,998

,047

-ive & -
ous

,357 167 4,046 ,000

-al & -ous ,542 167 5,860 ,000

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

Results of the study indicate that

intermediate-level adult Turkish EFL learners

participating in the present study have moderate

to high morphological awareness. In other

words, intermediate-level adult Turkish EFL

learners participating in the present study are

aware of syntactic and lexical functions of

certain suffixes in English to at least to a

moderate extent or more. These findings indicate

that the participants in the current study are

aware of word morphology to some extent;

however, they need more guidance to gain more

insights into word morphology and lexical and

grammatical functions of word parts. Once they

all seem to be aware of the reciprocal

Pair Mean
Difference

df t p

-ate & -
ize

,488 167 5,724 ,000

-ate & -fy 1,167 167 12,68
5

,000

-ize & -fy ,679 167 7,652 ,000

Journal of English Language and Education
Vol 3. No. 2, December 2017 ISSN : 2460-7142

relationship between vocabulary knowledge and

reading comprehension, they might be made

further aware of the relationship between

vocabulary knowledge and word morphology.

The explanation that the participants in the

present study have at least moderate awareness

of morphological awareness might lie in their

English proficiency and the time they have spent

learning English so far. They are at intermediate

level, indicating that they have made progress

towards being proficient EFL learners. They can

understand and talk about the main points of

familiar topics or the topics of personal interest;

they can deal with situations that arise while they

are travelling in an English speaking country and

they can describe their experiences, dreams and

hopes giving reasons (according to CEFR).

Besides, results of the present study indicate that

they can moderately recognize the

morphological structure of complex words,

identify the grammatical and lexical functions of

certain suffixes and judge whether two words are

morphologically related or not. However,

considering their English proficiency level, we

would expect higher morphological awareness.

This relatively lower awareness might be linked

to the lack of guidance among adult Turkish EFL

learners in terms of intra-word structure.

Apparently, they need more guidance to

recognize the internal structure of a word and

identify the root and the affixes. Additionally,

they need to be shown how to form new words

applying the word formation rules in English.

In addition, the present study reveals that

intermediate-level adult Turkish EFL learners

participating in the present study performed

better in the Word Relation task than in the

Sentence Completion task. This means that

intermediate-level adult Turkish EFL learners

participating in the present study can judge

whether a morphologically complex word comes

from a simple word better than they identify the

lexical and grammatical functions of certain

derivational suffixes in English. When we look

at the items in the Word Relation task (Section II

of the Morphological Awareness Test), we

notice that they measure a basic facet of

morphological awareness. These items

interrogate solely whether or not EFL learners

have a superficial knowledge of intra-word

structure in English.

Also, intermediate-level adult Turkish EFL

learners participating in the present study

showed the best performance in the verb making

suffixes. We expected the best performance in

the case of noun making derivational suffixes

since they are considered as the simplest among

the parts of speech and thus the first ones taught

to students in primary school. However, this

finding remarks that Turkish EFL learners might

be making use of verb making derivational

suffixes more frequently than any others; they

might often encounter and be engaged in verb

making derivational suffixes and thus are more

familiar with and aware of their lexical and

grammatical functions. The participants scored

the most poorly in the case of adjective making

Journal of English Language and Education
Vol 3. No. 2, December 2017 ISSN : 2460-7142

derivational suffixes, which might be explained

by that foreign language learners generally

encounter with and use nouns and verbs more

than the other parts of speech.

Lastly, intermediate-level adult Turkish

EFL learners participating in the present study

showed significantly more awareness for the

verb making derivational suffix –ate than –

izeand –fy. They showed significantly more

awareness for the noun making derivational

suffix –tion than –ty and –ist. They showed

significantly more awareness for the adjective

making derivational suffix –al than –iveand –

ous. This differentiation of the performance of

the participants in terms of the suffixes may also

be attributed to their experience with suffixes

and word formation through their studies at

preparatory school and the course-books. One

crucial thing that this finding signals is that

Turkish EFL learners display different

performance in recognizing and using suffixes

properly in accordance with the individual

suffixes even in the case of very common ones.

This indicates that they need to be provided with

a wider array of suffixes profoundly to be more

proficient in identifying word structure and

forming new words in English. In other words,

Turkish EFL learners should be provided with

derivational suffixes broadly and deeply to

achieve the goal of comprehending and

benefitting from intra-word structure in English.

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