A Dissertation by GRACE HUI-CHIN LIN Submitted to the Office of ...

frequently in class discussions. The reasons were simple words were easier to
understand than the others. Also, occasionally we were nervous during talking
in class, so we could not think of accurate words quickly. Whenever I was
excessively stressful, I abandoned the difficult message.
In a class discussion, I talked about pyramid and some of my classmates did
not know what it was. My teacher wanted me to explain it, and I said it was a
“King’s Tomb.” I needed a while to consider how to replace the word of
“pyramid” with “king’s tomb.” My classmates realized what I mentioned, and
I perceived that replacement strategy was not really easy to apply after
learning it. The reason was that I needed like 30 seconds to think of which
simpler words I could use to replace “King’s Tomb.” I needed to practice
and used meaning replacement strategy from time to time for about two years,
and I subconsciously could replace difficult words with simple words.
In her second interview, Sung Ru talked about her perceptions that higher level
students would be more competent in using this strategy:
Jian Guo and Do Nan (classmate) could apply it naturally without practicing
it for a long time. I believed it was because their personality was outgoing so
they dared to construct a simpler way of speaking.
Later, Sung Ru told the researcher that she had accumulated about 3,000
words in junior high school. Based on these learned words while studying in a junior
high school, she would be able to express through meaning replacement.
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