An Exploration Into The Development Of Lexical Competence Of Chinese Tertiary English Majors

This dissertation constitutes an attempt to explore the developmental features of lexical competence on the part of tertiary English majors in China. Built on the collective strengths of previous theoretical and empirical studies, a tentative conceptual framework of lexical competence in the foreign language classroom setting has been specifically constructed for the present research, which consists of four measurable dimensions, viz. vocabulary size (receptive and productive), depth of vocabulary knowledge (receptive and productive), lexical organization, and lexical semantic autonomy. Then research efforts have been made to investigate the developments of the four aforementioned dimensions and the relationships among them.Four hundred and twelve English majors from 16 intact classes from Year One through Year Four in a university in China participated in the cross-sectional investigation, and data were collected on the four dimensions of lexical competence. The Vocabulary Levels Test developed by Schmitt et al. (2001) was employed to measure the learners'receptive vocabulary size. RANGE and WordSmith Tools were exploited to process the timed compositions produced by the students. Lexical frequency profile and lexical diversity obtained from such analysis were considered as the indicators of the development of productive vocabulary size. An established test constructed by Read (1998) was used to assess the participants'depth of vocabulary knowledge. Lexical organization was gauged by a word association test containing 40 stimulus words strictly selected from Kent-Rosanoff word association list. Lexical semantic autonomy was tackled by a semantic relatedness judgment task, which characterized the specific semantic information in an L2 lexical entry in the mental lexicon. On a stratified-random sampling basis, 200 students (50 freshmen, 50 sophomores, 50 juniors, and 50 seniors) were selected from a population of 397 students who finished all the five test instruments.After analyzing the data obtained from the 200 subjects, the present research yields the following important findings:(1) In respect of receptive vocabulary size, the present research has revealed that it develops in a linear pattern from Year One to Year Four. There is a significant increase in each academic year, and the average gain of vocabulary per year is approximately 1,200 word families. The higher the learning stages, the larger the variation of receptive vocabulary size. From Year One to Year Two, the subjects increase their vocabulary in the five word frequency levels addressed in the Vocabulary Levels Test while the growth of receptive vocabulary size for the Year Three and Year Four subjects mainly occurs in the low frequency word levels like 5,000 word level or 10,000 word level. Another feature is that the subjects increase their receptive vocabulary size in the diverse word frequency levels simultaneously. The Year Three and Year Four learners gain word families in the low frequency word levels as well as word families in the high frequency word levels, though the increase in some word levels does not reach statistical significance.(2) The development of productive vocabulary size has been investigated by adopting a corpus-based approach. The lexical frequency profile yielded by RANGE shows that Year Three and Year Four subjects use significantly more low frequency word families in the"beyond 2,000"category while Year One and Year Two subjects employ more high frequency word families in the"basic 2,000"category. Compared with the development of receptive vocabulary, the expansion of the productive vocabulary is slower in rate and prone to fossilization in the course of improvement. The lexical diversity yielded by WordSmith is in congruence with the lexical frequency profile produced by RANGE. The standardized type/token ratios from Year Three and Year Four are larger than those from Year One and Year Two. However, the differences between Year Three and Year Four and that between Year One and Year Two are not so pronounced. With regard to word length, the subjects at higher learning stages surpass those at lower learning stages in their ability of producing long words with 7 or more letters.(3) The development of depth of vocabulary knowledge differs from that of receptive vocabulary size and productive vocabulary size in rate and pattern. From Year One to Year Three, the subjects increase their depth of vocabulary knowledge significantly while such development stagnates from Year Three to Year Four. In contrast to the subjects at lower learning stages, those at higher learning stages are more homogeneous and less varied in their depth of vocabulary knowledge. The results also indicate that meaning and collocation, two components of depth of vocabulary knowledge, are interrelated and interdependent in their developmental routes.(4) As an important dimension of lexical competence, the development of lexical organization has been gauged by the word association test in the present research. The general developmental pattern is that the subjects at higher learning stages produce more semantic associations than those at lower learning stages. The opposite is true for the non-semantic responses, and the subjects with less learning experiences yield more such responses than those with more learning experiences. A hasty conclusion, however, is untenable that the development of lexical organization is exclusively determined by language proficiency. Other factors such as word frequency, abstractness, and cultural strangeness exert influence on the organization of L2 mental lexicon. A close inspection of the clang-other responses shows that L2 learners often misperceive some stimulus words and thus produce unclassifiable responses. Another noticeable feature is that the L2 subjects tend to make responses belonging to the same word families as the stimuli, irrespective of their learning stages. Nevertheless, Year Three and Year Four subjects produce more sophisticated and abstract paradigmatic and syntagmatic associations than Year One and Year Two learners, indicating the possession of considerably larger and better-developed mental lexicon. Furthermore, some encyclopedic responses exhibit the influence of L1 semantic or conceptual system on the organization of L2 mental lexicon.(5) Research findings point to the fact that receptive vocabulary size, productive vocabulary size, depth of vocabulary knowledge and lexical organization are significantly and positively interrelated with each other, denoting the interdependent developments of the different dimensions of lexical competence.(6) Despite the obvious developments of receptive vocabulary size, productive vocabulary size, depth of vocabulary knowledge and lexical organization, the lexical semantic autonomy has not been achieved by the subjects at the four learning stages, confirming the view that L1 semantic involvement in L2 word processing is a long and constant state of L2 lexical development. Appropriate instructional interventions complemented by contextualized input from corpora can be an invaluable way to overcome semantic fossilization and promote the development of lexical semantic autonomy in L2 vocabulary acquisition.This research has theoretical, methodological and pedagogical implications. Theoretically, the conceptual framework of L2 lexical competence constructed and substantiated in this research can act as guidelines of vocabulary research and teaching. Methodologically, the multiple-test approach adopted in this exploration may be an insightful way to gauge the development of lexical competence. Pedagogically, Chinese EFL syllabus designers, material developers, classroom teachers and learners should be informed of the multidimensional nature of lexical competence and the developmental features of the different dimensions. Consequently, vocabulary teaching and learning can be improved through raising consciousness of lexical competence and designing balanced vocabulary courses aimed at the development of receptive and productive vocabularies as well as the construction of a well-structured mental lexicon. In addition, explicit vocabulary teaching complemented by data-driven learning can be adopted to trigger the semantic restructuring and overcome the L1 semantic mediation in L2 word processing.In short, this dissertation reports on a tentative exploration into the development of lexical competence of Chinese tertiary English majors, which is carried out in different ways and from different perspectives compared with previous research ever conducted at home and abroad. It is expected that the findings of this research will lead to a better understanding of the progress of L2 lexical competence and an improvement in vocabulary teaching and learning.