A Survey Study On Non-English Majors' Vocabulary Knowledge And Vocabulary Learning Modes

As is known to all, vocabulary is essential for any language activity. Just as Wilkins (1972:111) states that without grammar very little can be conveyed; without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed, hence the acquisition of lexical knowledge is central to the acquisition of a language and crucial to learn a foreign language. Scholars from both home and abroad have been doing many researches in the field of second language vocabulary acquisition and have achieved a lot. Nevertheless, for lexical knowledge, more focus has been put on one aspect of vocabulary ---vocabulary size, while the other important dimension of vocabulary knowledge---depth of vocabulary knowledge has been neglected; for vocabulary learning modes either intentional or incidental, there exist arguments especially for the second language learners in China. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate what Chinese English learners have learned in the process of their vocabulary acquisition in order to enhance their mastery of vocabulary knowledge both in breadth and depth. With a thorough survey of vocabulary learning modes, the whole process of how learners acquire vocabulary will be revealed comprehensively.The specific four questions involved in this research are as follows:(1) What is the status quo of the breadth and depth of vocabulary knowledge gained by the first-year non-English majors?(2) Which mode of vocabulary learning, intentional or incidental,is more often used by them?(3) What is the correlation between the subjects'breadth and depth of vocabulary knowledge?(4) What is the relationship between students' vocabulary knowledge and their modes of learning vocabulary? To address these issues, the present study adopts three instruments of Vocabulary Levels Test, Word Associates Test and Vocabulary Learning Modes Questionnaire to investigate the vocabulary breadth, vocabulary depth and vocabulary learning modes respectively. The subjects in this study are 63 first-year non-English majors from Ocean University of China. The collected data is analyzed by SPSS for windows 12.0 and the following results have been drawn:(1) By a descriptive analysis of vocabulary breadth and depth, freshmen's average vocabulary size reaches about 3728 word families and is superior to the mastery of depth of vocabulary knowledge, which is far from being satisfactory.(2) By Paired Sample t Test on vocabulary learning modes, it has been concluded the main vocabulary learning mode adopted by the subjects is intentional learning.(3) Pearson correlation analysis on BVK and DVK shows that there is a significant correlation between the two dimensions: learners'vocabulary knowledge grows accordingly in both breadth and depth.(4) By further correlation analysis on vocabulary knowledge and vocabulary learning modes as a whole, among the subcategories of INTVL, context strategy has significant correlation with both BVK and DVK; Of all the subcategories of INCVL, reading strategy exerts significant correlation with both BVK and DVK, which implies by reading much both vocabulary breadth and depth can also be strengthened to some degree.Based on the above findings, some tentative suggestions and implications are provided for vocabulary learning and teaching, such as giving different treatments to high and low frequency words, enhancing learning depth of vocabulary knowledge, combining intentional and incidental vocabulary learning modes, and so on.The author hopes that the present study can bring some hints and implications to vocabulary learning and teaching. For all the strenuous efforts in the work, limitations still exist in the study and there is still much room for further improvement, which will contribute more to this important area.