A Survey On English Majors' Vocabulary Knowledge And Modes Of Vocabulary Learning

The importance of vocabulary learning has been recognized by many researchers home and abroad, but they have not achieved agreement at all as to the methods to learn vocabulary. In recent years, the incidental learning has been attracting more and more attention from scholars, while the intentional learning has met with more and more criticism.The author of this thesis, motivated by the research on the intentional vocabulary learning and incidental vocabulary learning in the field of SLA and by the dispute over the understanding of vocabulary knowledge and the argument over the choice of vocabulary learning modes, adopts the cross-sectional survey study in an attempt to investigate:1) what is the status quo of receptive, productive vocabulary knowledge and depth of vocabulary knowledge gained by English majors in different grades? And is there difference between the receptive and productive?2) which of intentional and incidental vocabulary learning modes is more often used by English majors and what changes have made in use of strategies contained in these two modes?3) what relationship exists between three kinds of vocabulary knowledge and two learning modes?The study, centered on the research questions, involves 155 English majors in four different grades in the School of Foreign Languages of Lanzhou University by simple sampling, and adopts instruments of vocabulary learning modes questionnaire, Vocabulary Levels Tests and Word Associates Test. After the collected data is analyzed with SPSS (12.0), the results are reported as follows:1) receptive and productive vocabulary grow steadily though difference exists between them, while the depth of vocabulary knowledge presents a complex pattern;2) intentional vocabulary learning is used more often than incidental vocabulary learning, and changes in the use of strategies are only limited to association in intentional vocabulary learning and to speaking, reading and translating in the incidental vocabulary learning;3) there is a moderate positive correlation between intentional vocabulary learning and depth of vocabulary knowledge, while there is a strong positive correlation between incidental vocabulary learning and receptive vocabulary knowledge.The first finding is consistent with other researchers', but the second and the third are different from most researchers'. Based on the major findings of the study and relevant theories, some pedagogical implications are provided for vocabulary teaching and learning, i.e., teachers' adjustments in vocabulary teaching, materials developers' selections and adjustments in vocabulary, consolidating word form and meaning in memory, and training on vocabulary learning strategies.It is important to note that the present study has limitations in focuses and conditions, which can be the points for the further studies.