The Impact of Proper Names of Characters on Language Learning in Movie-Based English Education
Article information
Abstract
This study proposes a method that uses proper names to help low intermediate university students maintain self-efficacy despite external evaluation standards. Five students participated; one with relatively higher English proficiency and four at a lower-intermediate level. The Simpsons, season 1, episode 1 (Silverman, 1989) served as the instructional material. Over three months, students engaged in twelve story-based sessions. After the sessions, four tests and one written response were collected from each participant. The first test required students to recall and write down character names. The second test asked them to match 30 selected lines with the characters who said them. The third test involved identifying word clues in each line that led to their guesses. The fourth test asked them to provide general meanings of the lines. Results showed that all participants, except one, demonstrated strong recall in identifying characters and lines. In the third test, most word clues used were nouns. In the final test, four participants conveyed the overall meanings successfully. These findings suggest that low intermediate learners rely heavily on nouns and can achieve meaningful comprehension through identifying proper names and contextual clues, which may contribute positively to their confidence and learning experience.
I. INTRODUCTION
There is no doubt that structuralism and generative grammar made significant contributions to the development of linguistic theory in the 20th century. However, Langacker (1999) strongly opposed theories that relied excessively on language alone. He disagreed with the formal approach of generative grammar, arguing that language is not simply a combination of structures but part of how humans perceive and express the world. Grammar, therefore, should also be regarded as a conceptual structure that carries meaning. This view laid the foundation for cognitive linguistics, with his Cognitive Grammar becoming one of its representative theories. In actual language acquisition by L1 children, numerous variables beyond language itself appear to play important roles. When linguistic theories treat such variables as external and deliberately exclude them, they risk lacking psychological reality.
In the latter half of the 20th century, there was a growing movement toward adopting sociocultural approaches in second language acquisition (SLA). In essence, this reflected a call for a more integrated perspective in linguistic research. Blair (2003) emphasized the need for a socially richer framework. In line with this perspective, newer research emerged offering fresh insights. Norton and Toohey (2011), for instance, highlighted the importance of social context from the learner’s point of view. According to them, learners are not simply driven by motivation or its absence, but by the emotional, identity-related, and social values they attach to language learning. Rather than asking whether learners are motivated, their research aimed to understand why some learners resist or avoid language learning, framing it within a broader social context. This view suggests that learners who appear unmotivated in one context might become actively engaged under different social conditions.
In recent years, general English courses at universities in Korea have been increasingly overlooked by students, resulting in a reduction in offerings or, in some cases, the discontinuation of such courses. While the exact reasons are not entirely clear, it seems that at universities where many students fall within the lower to intermediate proficiency range, there may be a lack of supportive perspectives on how to engage these learners. This may contribute to a tendency among some students to avoid or disengage from English learning.
Therefore, this study aims to explore the identities of low intermediate students from a fresh perspective. This study begins by questioning the common tendency to equate academic performance with personal value. When students are defined primarily by their test scores, we risk overlooking the richness of who they are as individuals. Rather than relying on conventional definitions of what constitutes a “low intermediate level”1 learner, the goal is to observe and understand the unique characteristics of these students through a new lens. To this end, The Simpsons, season 1, episode 1 (S1E1) will be used as teaching material, presented in a storytelling format. Traditional methods of L2-L1 translation may be too challenging for students at this level, so the lessons will be designed to match their preferences through a story-centered approach. As is widely recognized, storytelling is a universally appealing form, which makes it a powerful tool in education. Bala (2015) notes that storytelling provides meaningful contexts for learners, transforming the classroom into an enjoyable and immersive environment, and helping students engage with the language more naturally.
Above all, special attention is given to assessment for low intermediate level students. Test items will be carefully designed to be accessible even at this level, for example, asking students to recall character names from the episode or identify words associated with characters based on spoken lines. The test will draw on the tendency of beginning language learners to rely on nouns (McDonough et al., 2011; Waxman et al., 2013), which provides a cognitively manageable entry point for these learners. Through this approach, it is hoped that low to intermediate level students will no longer feel judged or marginalized in the classroom but instead come to enjoy learning English through stories in a more supportive and engaging environment.
II. LITERATURE REVIEW
1. Noun Friendly
When it comes to language acquisition, it’s impossible to leave out Gentner (1982) when discussing why nouns tend to be learned first. Gentner introduced the term “noun bias” to describe the tendency for children acquiring their first language to learn nouns earlier and more frequently than other types of words. The reason is that nouns refer to concrete, perceptually salient entities (e.g., people and objects), making them easier to identify. In contrast, verbs describe actions or states, which are more abstract and often need to be inferred from context. To reinforce this argument, Gentner (1982) proposed the Natural Partitions Hypothesis (NPH), which assumes that there exists a natural way to divide up the world. More specifically, the idea is that when people perceive the world, there are certain divisions that are more natural and cognitively intuitive. For example, when explaining or understanding a situation, people naturally distinguish between nouns (objects) and verbs (relations or events). This assumption has become a key premise in research on both language acquisition and concept formation. The argument is that since people intuitively perceive the world this way from early childhood, noun concepts are acquired earlier than verb concepts. In other words, people are naturally inclined to recognize the distinction between entities (nouns) and relations (verbs) in their cognition.
Gentner and Boroditsky (2001) describe how humans conceptualize the world and how those concepts are acquired through language. They studied how children, when first experiencing the world, group fragments of experience into unified concepts. They proposed two possible explanations for this process. One is called cognitive dominance. This idea assumes that there are natural groupings in the world, and that human cognition first conceptualizes these groupings, with language merely assigning labels to them afterward. For example, imagine a yellow banana, a yellow flower, and a yellow shirt. People naturally recognize a shared property (the color yellow) and intuitively group them together based on this common feature. This is what is referred to as cognitive dominance. Only after this cognitive grouping occurs is a label like ‘yellow’ assigned. If, on the other hand, language dominated cognition, each object would need to be labeled and memorized individually. In reality, however, people tend to cognitively group objects with similar properties first, and then language follows by providing labels for those conceptual categories.
The other possibility is called linguistic dominance. According to this view, there are no inherently predetermined groupings in the world; rather, language organizes and conceptualizes fragments of experience. In this case, entities that are expressed as nouns are naturally perceived as independent concepts because language groups them that way. When cognitive dominance is particularly strong, however, children tend to learn nouns earlier and more easily. This is because their cognition naturally prioritizes the recognition of individual entities, which aligns with how language labels these objects with nouns.
Maguire et al. (2006) proposed the Emergentist Coalition Model, a theory that explains how children use various types of information such as perceptual, linguistic, and social cues to figure out the meanings of new words. For example, infants rely heavily on visual information more than anything else in the early stages. Therefore, it becomes easier for them to attach names to visible objects, which naturally leads them to depend on nouns. As children grow older, they begin to make greater use of social cues and linguistic cues. At this stage, they start to acquire verbs, which involve relationships and actions. From this perspective, the Emergentist Coalition Model sees the acquisition process of both nouns and verbs as the same in principle. However, in early development, children depend more on perceptual cues, which causes nouns, or object labels, to be learned first.
To explain the core assumptions of the Emergentist Coalition Model, there are three main ideas. First, children use multiple cues at the same time. Second, the importance of each cue changes according to development. In the early stages, children focus on what they can see, and as time passes, they pay more attention to contextual factors, the speaker’s intentions, and grammatical information. Third, through experience, children gradually discover for themselves the principles of how to learn words.
According to Maguire et al.’s Emergentist Coalition Model, cue preference changes depending on developmental stages, and adults are expected to rely more on linguistic and social cues than on perceptual cues. Theoretically, this would mean that it should be easier for adults to acquire verbs, which involve contextual relations, than nouns. However, in reality, low intermediate L2 university students also tend to learn nouns more easily. How can this discrepancy be explained?
One possible hypothesis is that although the Emergentist Coalition Model claims that cue preference shifts with development, L2 learners, unlike L1 learners, tend to rely more on perceptual cues even as adults in unfamiliar L2 environments. This is because they lack the ability and experience to fully interpret linguistic and social cues in a second language, compared to their native language. As a result, they tend to depend on perceptual cues, which naturally leads them to acquire visible object labels, or nouns, more quickly and more frequently. This hypothesis is suggested as a possible explanation in the present study.
2. Verb Friendly
The idea that nouns are learned earlier comes from Western perspectives (Gentner, 1982). However, other researchers have expressed very different views, arguing that the early noun advantage is not a universal feature of human language, but rather a phenomenon that appears in specific languages (Waxman et al., 2013). They further state the following.
Two gaps—one theoretical and the other empirical—have until recently limited our ability to adjudicate between these distinct positions. The theoretical gap concerns the status of the assumption that verbs should be more readily acquired in verb-friendly than noun-friendly languages. On one hand, some linguistic features of these languages might offer such an advantage. First, in verb-friendly languages, nouns are typically dropped from the surface of an utterance whenever sufficient support from the context allows the speaker to retrieve their meaning. As a result, nouns are relatively less frequent and verbs more frequent in the input to infants and young children, and verbs can occur alone or occupy the privileged phrase-final position. (p. 156)
In verb friendly languages, nouns are typically omitted when their meanings can be inferred from context. This phenomenon frequently occurs in languages like Korean, Chinese, and Japanese, where subject omission is common. For example, the following conversation illustrates how noun omission is possible due to contextual cues:
Friend A: Did you watch Squid Game?
Friend B: (I) did (watch Squid Game).
As a result, the input children receive tends to contain relatively fewer nouns and more verbs. Verbs may also appear on their own or occupy the privileged sentence-final position. This privileged position is typically found in languages with an S-O-V (Subject-Object-Verb) structure. When verbs appear at the end of a sentence, children may be more likely to focus on them. However, Waxman et al. (2013) argue that the assumption that verbs are more readily learned in verb-friendly languages is not theoretically well-established, and that there is a lack of cross-linguistic empirical data comparing children’s verb learning.
One cross-linguistic study that addresses this issue is Bornstein et al. (2004). This study examined how young children’s vocabularies are composed across seven linguistically and culturally diverse communities. Data were collected through parental reports from the mothers of 269 twenty-month-old children in Argentina, Belgium, France, Israel, Italy, Korea, and the United States. The results showed that, regardless of language, children knew more nouns than verbs or adjectives. Similarly, Imai et al. (2008) investigated when children learning Japanese, English, and Chinese are able to map and extend novel nouns and verbs. The findings also revealed that children, across all three languages, learned nouns more easily than verbs. Taken together, these findings suggest that the concept of verb-friendliness lacks both theoretical and empirical support.
3. Imageability
McDonough et al. (2011) ultimately identified three main explanations for why nouns tend to be acquired earlier than verbs. First is the attentional explanation. Children are more likely to attend to objects than to actions. They tend to focus on and show interest in objects more easily than in the actions involving those objects. According to this view, children typically learn the names of objects first, and only then begin to acquire the verbs that describe what those objects are doing (Echols & Marti, 2004; Kersten & Smith, 2002). Second is the perceptual explanation. Nouns tend to refer to entities that are stable in time and space, making them easier to perceive and recognize. In contrast, verbs refer to actions, which are transient, dynamic, and constantly changing, making them more difficult to conceptualize and generalize (Golinkoff et al., 2002; Golinkoff & Hirsh-Pasek, 2008). Third is the input-based explanation. Parents tend to repeat noun labels in speech, whereas verbs are often demonstrated through action rather than being explicitly named. Even in verb-friendly Asian languages, studies have shown that parents tend to engage in more object-centered conversations with young children (Goldfield, 2000; Tardif et al., 2005).
McDonough et al. (2011) explained children’s earlier acquisition of nouns in terms of imageability. To begin with, imageability is not the same as an image itself; rather, it is a psychological property that quantifies how easily a word can evoke a mental image. In other words, it refers to the strength with which a concept triggers imagery in the mind. For example, nouns are generally easier to visualize. On the other hand, verbs are more difficult to represent mentally as images. While some verbs may evoke images to a certain degree, their forms often vary depending on the situation, making it harder to visualize them consistently. Gentner and Boroditsky (2001) argued that the distinction between nouns and verbs does not stem merely from grammatical structure, but rather from the conceptual properties that these word classes typically represent. Nouns tend to refer to entities with clear boundaries, making them more imageable.
Lin et al. (2022) explain why imageability, or the ease with which a mental image can be formed, is important in early word learning. According to their study, the acquisition of early vocabulary begins with words that are perceptually salient. In other words, children first learn words that are directly connected to their sensorimotor experiences. At the center of this process is the concept of imageability. As is well known, imageability refers to the extent to which a concept readily evokes a mental image. This property was quantified as an important metric by Paivio et al. (1968).
Therefore, imageability goes beyond mere sensory features; it plays a crucial role in how concepts are mentally organized, stored, and retrieved. As a result, typically developing children’s early vocabularies tend to consist of concrete and highly imageable words. Even if a word is frequently heard, if it has low imageability, it may still be difficult for a child to remember or use. Although Lin et al. (2022) do not explicitly refer to nouns or verbs, their emphasis on high imageability implicitly points to nouns, since nouns are typically more imageable than verbs.
In summary, research-oriented linguistics appears to be excessively preoccupied with language itself. In reality, however, language is used with entirely different concerns. This study employs films and focuses on low intermediate students, as it allows for the observation of language use in more real-world contexts. Although films are fictional, they depict self-contained worlds. Moreover, low intermediate students have not been extensively trained in artificial classroom settings, and thus are expected to reveal more natural language behavior.
III. DESIGN
1. Background and Goal
Test scores and proficiency levels can lead to a misjudgment of a student’s overall English ability and potential, which poses a significant risk to the promotion of general English education programs at the university level. Alderson (2004) warned that standardized test scores can classify learners based on a single score. Norton (2013) also pointed out that when learners come to perceive themselves as poor performers based on test results or evaluations, it can lower their motivation and negatively affect the formation of their language learner identity.
To address this risk, the present study guides low level students to engage in learning and assessment centered around proper names, which are easier for them to adapt to. Given that this study uses animations as a learning tool, it is assumed that proper names can play a meaningful role in this context. Traditional language theories, especially structuralism and generative grammar, which tend to separate language from its use, have typically categorized proper names as a type of noun but have not given much importance to their semantic, social, or contextual functions. As a result, there is a danger that learners may neglect vocabulary items such as proper names in their language learning process.
With these considerations in mind, this case study aims to examine how engaging with proper names affects students’ language learning. The purposes of the study are as follows.
First, how does knowing the referent influence the interpretation of the sentence uttered by the speaker?
Second, to what extent is knowing the referent related to salience?
Third, can nouns such as proper names be helpful for low proficiency students in their language learning?
2. Participants
A total of five students are participating in this case study. Among them, three are majoring in performing arts and acting, while the other two are engineering students. Except for one performing arts student, all participants fall into the lower proficiency group in English2. The performing arts students are accustomed to memorizing scripts through their regular practical training, although these scripts are not in English. As a result, their perspective on scripts differs significantly from that of the engineering students. They have developed a habit of listening to and interpreting the lines of characters as if they were actual utterances in real life. On the other hand, the engineering students have no prior experience with scripts. Although it is not the primary aim of this study, it will also observe whether emphasizing proper names produces any noticeable differences between performing arts majors and non-majors. From this perspective, it can be said that the participants of this case study are appropriately suited to meet the objectives of the research.
3. Material
For this study, The Simpsons, season 1, episode 1 (Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire, Silverman, 1989) was selected as the primary teaching material. In Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire3, Christmas is approaching, and Homer doesn’t receive a Christmas bonus at work, leaving him unable to buy presents for his family. Bart secretly gets a tattoo, and the money for the Christmas budget is spent on his treatment. Homer secretly works as a mall Santa to earn some extra cash but fails, and he tries to win money at the dog races, but loses. In the end, Homer brings home a dog named Santa’s Little Helper from the race track, and the family ends up having a warm Christmas together.
The reason for using Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire as teaching material is as follows. Since the story centers around a family, it gives participants a sense of familiarity and makes it easier for them to engage. Additionally, the quirky humor of the main characters, Homer and his son Bart, influences the other characters in the show, creating entertaining and dynamic stories. Although it is an animated series with a family theme, it contains sharp social satire, offering ample topics for discussion. It is not simply a tool for learning English, but also a means to explore cultural and social contexts, making it a suitable resource for case studies. Furthermore, because The Simpsons reflects a wide range of issues, from everyday family matters to political and social commentary, it allows learners to encounter authentic expressions and cultural references in context. This makes the material not only educational but also thought-provoking and culturally enriching.
4. Procedure
The case study was carried out over a period of three months, consisting of 12 sessions held once a week, with each session lasting between 30 minutes and 1 hour. Given the participants’ level of English proficiency, it was considered essential to structure the sessions around the storyline. Particular emphasis was placed on the personalities of the characters, especially Homer and Bart, whose eccentric traits significantly influence the narrative development. Accordingly, their dialogues were closely analyzed during the sessions.
First, the instructor asks the participants to tell the story of the related scene. After the first participant finishes, the next participant adds any missing or incomplete parts. This process continues until the story of the scene is fully reconstructed. The instructor encourages all participants to take part in completing the story.
Second, in Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire, the relationships between characters are important. Since humor and satire are woven into the story, participants are guided to identify these elements in the characters’ lines.
Third, the instructor asks various content-related questions to help participants actively engage with the story. However, no questions about language knowledge or grammar are asked during the activity.
Fourth, although the activity is led through a story-centered approach, discussing the personalities of the characters naturally leads to a kind of discourse analysis. While the primary focus remains on the content, participants are implicitly exposed to language use throughout the activity.
5. Evaluation
The evaluation is mostly centered around nouns. Four types of assessments are conducted using 30 selected lines from the episode (see Appendix).
First, participants are asked to name characters related to Homer, including family members, relatives, friends, coworkers, and any other necessary characters.
Second, for each of the 30 lines, participants write down the name of the character who said it.
Third, in this test, participants identify and write down the clue word in each line that helped them decide which character said it.
Fourth, participants briefly write down the approximate meaning of each of the 30 lines. Here, they are not required to translate or interpret them grammatically, as the participants’ English proficiency is limited.
Fifth, participants are asked to write their personal opinions about the case study activity and the tests they participated in.
IV. Results and Analysis
1. Character Recall in the Narrative
In the first half of Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire, a total of 16 characters appear. These characters include Homer’s family members, relatives, friends, coworkers, a friend’s son, shopkeepers at the mall, and both the principal and a general teacher from Lisa and Bart’s school. They are listed in order of proximity to Homer, from those closest to him to those more distant. Table 1 presents how well the participants recalled these characters.
Homer Family, Friends, and Acquaintances
Except for Participant B, 13 out of 16 characters (81.3%) were successfully recalled. Among these, Homer’s close family members, relatives, and friends were all remembered by every participant, again with the exception of Participant B. As for Homer’s coworkers, Participants C, D, and E recalled all of them, while Participants A and B each failed to recall one coworker. Interestingly, Mr. Burns, the boss, was easily remembered, whereas Smithers, the immediate supervisor, was not. This can be understood in light of the fact that Mr. Burns appeared twice and had a more memorable presence, while Smithers appeared only once and did not say anything particularly noteworthy.
Meanwhile, in the mall scene, the tattoo shop owner Mervin and the doctor Zitsofsky, who removes tattoos, appeared, but Participants B, C, and E failed to recall either of them. Participants A and D were able to recall Dr. Zitsofsky. Given that these two characters did not play a significant role in the progression of the story, it is understandable that they were not easily remembered. At the school, Principal Skinner and another teacher, Mr. Largo, made appearances. Principal Skinner was recalled by four participants, likely due to the presence of a memorable cue.
In summary, characters who appeared frequently or delivered memorable lines were recalled by the participants, while those who did not were more difficult to remember. Participants A, B, and C, who majored in performing arts, did not demonstrate a significant advantage over non-majors. Nevertheless, the fact that participants were able to recall the characters indicates a high level of engagement with the narrative.
2. Naming Characters
In this section, participants were given 30 lines of dialogue from various characters and were asked to identify who said each line. The results are presented in Table 2. The category labeled “the closest correct answers” refers to responses where the participant did not recall the exact name of the character but clearly recognized who it was. For example, if a participant could not remember the name “Dr. Zitsofsky” but wrote “the doctor,” the answer was still considered correct.
Level of Name Recall
Participant A answered all items correctly, achieving a score of 100%, which indicates that they remembered exactly who said each line. Participant B answered 28 correctly, but for 7 of these, they did not recall the exact character names. However, since they generally recognized who said the lines, it can be inferred that they had a good understanding of the story in Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire. Participant C4 answered 18 correctly and got 12 wrong, suggesting a limited understanding of the narrative. Although she remembered the names of 13 characters in Table 1, her failure to correctly attribute 12 of the given lines indicates that she had not fully grasped the storyline. Participant D correctly identified 27 lines and gave 26 exact answers, ranking second in terms of accuracy. However, with 3 incorrect answers overall, they ended up placing third. Finally, Participant E answered 25 correctly and provided 23 exact answers, but with 5 incorrect responses, placed fourth.
In summary, although four participants were able to recall the names of 13 characters in Table 1, their ability to accurately identify who delivered each line of dialogue varied. Participant A ranked first, followed by Participant B in second place, Participant D in third, and Participant E in fourth.
3. Identifying Specific Words
In Table 2, when identifying who said a certain line, the task was to indicate which part of speech in the utterance hinted at the character who said it. The results are shown in Table 3.
Incidentally Recalled Parts of Speech
All participants chose nouns. Participant A said that out of 30 utterances, 22 nouns helped in identifying the character who said them. Participant B reported that 20 nouns were helpful, Participant C mentioned 11, Participant D also reported 20, and Participant E said 16 nouns were helpful. When noun reliance was converted into percentages, Participant D ranked highest, followed by Participant A in second place, Participant B in third, Participant E in fourth, and Participant C in last place.
Considering that the participants’ English proficiency was in the low intermediate range, the fact that their reliance on nouns was particularly high seems worth serious consideration. It makes sense that low intermediate students rely heavily on nouns. Nouns tend to be more concrete and visually memorable, especially in movie dialogue where characters, places, and objects play a key role in understanding the scene (Kim, 2017; Lee, 2017; Ryu, 2022). Unlike verbs or function words, nouns often carry the core meaning of a sentence, making it easier for students to associate them with specific characters or situations (Fitaloka, 2019; Tran & Waluyo, 2021). This could be a useful insight when designing teaching materials—by highlighting key nouns, educators can help students better grasp and retain the content.
4. Inferring the Meaning (Roughly)
The participants’ English proficiency made it difficult for them to translate the script of Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire into Korean. Therefore, instead of asking for an accurate translation, they were instructed to roughly grasp the meaning and write it down. Table 4 shows the results. However, in the table, some responses are labeled as “literal interpretation,” which refers to cases where participants, despite being asked to grasp the general meaning, ended up translating the lines literally. These were considered correct. On the other hand, responses labeled as “partial understanding” were considered incorrect, because the meaning was not fully conveyed.
Grasping the Meaning
Participant A had the second-highest noun dependency at 73.3% (see Table 2), but ranked first in meaning comprehension in Table 4. Participant E ranked second in meaning comprehension, but was fourth in noun dependency. Participant B came in third for meaning comprehension and had the third-highest noun dependency, receiving the same rating. Participant D ranked fourth in meaning comprehension, but had the highest noun dependency. Participant C did not meet the minimum criteria in any of the tests, so there is no need to mention them further.
Based on these figures, a high level of noun dependency does not offer any advantage in understanding meaning. However, noun dependency can also be viewed in a positive light. Interpreting noun dependency positively is both valid and insightful. In film-based learning, nouns, especially character names, locations, and key objects, can serve as anchors that help learners construct a rough understanding of what’s happening. If participants are identifying character traits or picking up on who is speaking and to whom, their focus on nouns could reflect an early-stage strategy for meaning-making. Rather than being a weakness, this might show that they are beginning to engage with the narrative world. With proper scaffolding, such as guiding questions or contextual clues, this noun-centered processing could evolve into more complete comprehension. In short, noun dependency may not directly cause full understanding, but it can be a useful entry point into deeper learning.
In summary, the participants showed a good ability to remember the names of the characters in the film (see Table 1). They were also fairly skilled at recalling who said each of the 30 lines (see Table 2). This ability was largely supported by their reliance on nouns (see Table 3). However, noun dependency did not give them an advantage in understanding the meaning (see Table 4). For instance, Participant E had the second-lowest noun dependency (excluding Participant C), yet ranked second in meaning comprehension. This suggests that successful comprehension requires the involvement of various parts of speech. Even so, considering that the participants were able to attempt meaning comprehension with the help of nouns despite their limited English skills, noun dependency should not be viewed negatively for low level learners.
5. Discussion
The first research question in III. Design asks how knowing the referent affects the sentence produced by the speaker. Knowing the referent entails understanding the speaker’s personality, concerns, and perspective. As shown in Table 1, four participants correctly identified 13 out of 16 characters. In Table 2, these same four participants correctly matched between 25 and 30 of the 30 sentences to the appropriate speaker. These results suggest that participants had little difficulty inferring speaker characteristics based solely on the sentences. In particular, since they had access to the animation, it is assumed that participants had a mental image6 of the characters, which enabled them to easily connect each line of speech to the corresponding character.
The second research question concerns whether knowing the referent is related to salience. Lin et al. (2022) stated that children learn words by relying on perceptual, social, and linguistic cues. Given the relatively low English proficiency of the college participants in this study, their language learning process may resemble that of children. With the aid of the animation, participants were able to form mental images of the characters, and along with other contextual information, they seemed to draw on perceptual, social, and linguistic cues to identify salience in the target words. What is particularly interesting here is the data presented in Table 3. Most participants perceived salience primarily in nouns. As widely noted, children tend to acquire nouns before other word types (Fenson et al., 1994; Gentner, 1982). In terms of salience, L2 college learners appear to show a similar pattern to that of L1 children. Among the participants, salience was primarily reflected in the emotional intensity exhibited by the characters.
The third research question asks whether the use of proper noun, specifically the names of characters in the animation, can support language learning among low intermediate learners. The fact that children typically acquire nouns first suggests that this pattern may reflect a more fundamental aspect of how humans learn language. In other words, there may be insights in early childhood language acquisition that are applicable to adult learners as well. For example, Tomasello (2008) argued that language emerges from humans’ inherently cooperative nature, and that social skills such as joint attention and intention-reading form the foundation of language. Given the participants’ low English proficiency, their reliance on contextual cues such as the animation and mental imagery is similar to how children initially depend on non-linguistic, social tools in the language learning process. Table 4 illustrates the extent to which participants who struggled to interpret sentences linguistically were able to infer meaning through guessing and contextual reasoning. In this process, the character names served to provide context for the utterances, suggesting that such proper nouns can, at least in the early stages of learning, facilitate comprehension and support language acquisition.
V. CONCLUSION
In a university setting, neglecting students’ preferences in English instruction may hinder the smooth progression of the class. While instructors may aim to teach high-frequency vocabulary for practical reasons, students themselves might be more interested in learning English that they find enjoyable or engaging.
In this study, the goal was to explore the preferences and tendencies of university students from this perspective. The class was designed around a narrative approach using The Simpsons, season 1, episode 1. The focus was placed more on content than on language itself, with an emphasis on creating an engaging and enjoyable learning experience.
After the lesson, a test was conducted using 30 sentences taken from S1E1. The first task asked participants to write down the names of 16 characters who appeared in the episode. Surprisingly, many participants were able to recall a large number of characters (see Table 1).
The second task required them to identify which character had spoken each of the 30 sentences. Once again, the results were unexpectedly strong (see Table 2). The third task asked which specific words helped them recall the corresponding characters. Finally, the fourth task asked participants to interpret the meaning of each sentence—not by translating it into Korean, but by writing down what they guessed the general meaning might be.
Each of the four tasks was not designed to assess participants’ linguistic knowledge per se, but rather their world knowledge (specifically, their understanding of the fictional world of the Simpson family). The purpose behind this testing approach was to move away from a strictly linguistics-driven framework and instead encourage students to engage with an imagined world, through which they could acquire natural expressions in context. Traditional linguistic knowledge, which has often been emphasized in language education, was intentionally left for the participants to explore on their own when they felt motivated to do so.
The test results provided insight into the role of nouns for the participants. First, the data revealed a high degree of noun dependency. This seems to be closely related to the use of animation as the primary learning material. As is widely recognized, nouns often refer to concrete, visible entities, making them easier to remember. When visual materials like animation are used, it becomes natural for learners to rely on nouns, as these can be directly linked to what they see on screen. Second, the participants’ level of English proficiency also played a role. Due to their limited linguistic knowledge, it was difficult for them to rely on formal linguistic cues. Instead, they used context to compensate for the lack of linguistic knowledge. Among the most effective contextual clues were the proper names of characters. Knowing who the character was and understanding their traits often provided a useful basis for interpreting the meaning of the sentence. Third, the findings pointed to the role of salience. Many of the cues that helped participants infer sentence meaning were, in fact, nouns (see Table 3). This suggests that nouns served as salient anchors in the comprehension process.
The test results also revealed another noteworthy pattern: a similarity between L1 children and L2 adult learners in their reliance on nouns. It is well established that young children tend to acquire nouns before verbs (Fenson et al., 1994; Genter, 1982). Genter referred to this tendency as the noun bias, suggesting that children learn nouns first because they typically refer to tangible, visible entities. Numerous other studies have also emphasized the central role of nouns in early language acquisition (Golinkoff & Hirsh-Pasek, 2006; Tomasello, 2003).
Additionally, the assumption that participants majoring in performing arts (Participants A, B, and C) would outperform those majoring in engineering (Participants D and E) did not hold true. Contrary to expectations, the performance gap between the two groups was not as clear-cut as predicted.
Taken together, language learning should be accompanied by attention to non-linguistic elements. The repeated description of the research findings is intended to highlight the importance of these non-linguistic aspects. Both integrational linguistics (Harris, 1981, 2009) and experiential learning theory emphasize the role of non-linguistic factors, and it is hoped that this study will encourage greater interest in these theoretical frameworks.
Notes
Depending on the researcher’s intention, the word level may sometimes follow intermediate (e.g., intermediate level).
These scores are based on the CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages). However, the exact scores cannot be disclosed, as the participants did not wish to have their personal information revealed.
“Roasting on an open fire” is a famous line from the Christmas song “The Christmas Song,” written by Mel Tormé and Bob Wells in 1945. The phrase refers to the warm, festive image of chestnuts being roasted over an open fire, a classic Christmas tradition. It has since become a symbol of holiday warmth and coziness, often evoking the comforting atmosphere of Christmas. The phrase was later used as the title of the first episode of The Simpsons, blending the holiday spirit with the show’s humor and family dynamics (Silverman, 1989).
Participant C was only able to join the study with difficulty due to her acting class schedule. Her test data (except for Table 1) are therefore not available for analysis. Participant C’s performance suggests a need for additional support.
Noun dependency indicates the ratio of noun usage within a text, aiming to underscore the extent to which nouns are relied upon in the discourse.
Mental image involves using visual or emotional impressions from a scene to guess who is speaking, based on context and intuition. Recall, on the other hand, relies on memory of previously heard words, phrases, or voices to accurately identify the speaker.