Cluster Analysis and the Interlanguage Lexicon.

As part of a research program investigating the interlanguage lexicon of Kenyan learners of English, based on the lexical field of locomotion, a card sorting task was used to produce raw similarity measure data. This was subjected to cluster analysis and multidimensional scaling (MDS). This paper suggests that cluster analysis/MDS of perceived similarities of selected verbs in a sorting task may indicate possible lines of investigation of the lexical knowledge of different groups of learners in comparison to that of native speakers. (Contains 25 references.) (Author)