An Empirical Study On The Use Of Inferencing Strategies Among Chinese Non-English Majors

The thesis aims to investigate the use of inferencing strategies and the efficacy of inferencing strategies in the reading process of non-English majors. Three research questions related to the use of inferencing strategies and the efficacy of inferencing strategies are proposed and answered. A total of 133 non-English majors from Shandong Agricultural University attended the test and submitted the inferencing strategy questionnaire and reading tests. There are two types of reading tests:one with passages and the other with independent sentences. Finally,119 valid questionnaire papers are collected.The collected data are analyzed by SPSS, and the descriptive statistics, results from independent-sample T-test and other analyses are examined. The results reveal that:(1) When an unknown word occurs in reading, the subjects use inferencing strategy at a high rate, and they hold an optimistic view about inferencing strategies; meanwhile, the frequency of inferencing strategy use after class is higher than that in class; (2) The results of the two reading tests show that on average the subjects can correctly infer about 60% of the unknown word meanings; the use of context clues is more frequent than the use of linguistic clues; results from the passage reading test reveal that the subjects has a higher inference accuracy when they infer words in the materials whose content they are familiar with; (3) Gender and the use of inferencing strategies are not significantly correlated, but girls hold a slightly more positive view about inferencing strategies than boys; independent-sample T-test reveals that gender is not significantly correlated with the accuracy of inference; (4) Students with high proficiency are good at inferencing word meaning by examples, and students with low proficiency rely more on the background knowledge provided by a particular text; the students with low proficiency seldom analyze word formation to obtain word meaning; language proficiency and the accuracy of the inferred word meaning are not significantly correlatedAccording to the above research findings, pedagogical implications are provided for teachers in practical teaching. Various context clues and linguistic clues should be systematically introduced to facilitate the learners'inferencing process, and teachers should give more lectures about western culture. In addition, teachers should bear students' individual differences in mind. The students are encouraged to infer word meanings, but the inferred word meaning should also be frequently checked by using dictionaries or other means.