A Study On Non-English Majors’ Differences In The Use Of Vocabulary Association Strategies

In language learning,vocabulary mastery plays a crucial role in learning effect.As an important and relatively high-level vocabulary learning strategy,vocabulary association strategy(VAS)can mainly help learners remember and extract vocabulary knowledge.Through combing relative studies,it is found that there are few studies on the specific relationship between VAS and vocabulary knowledge,and even fewer studies on the differences of using VAS.In the existing studies,most of them focus on primary and secondary school students or English majors,while relatively few focus on non-English majors.Non-English majors are the most important part of Chinese universities.Therefore,to fully understand the English vocabulary learning of Chinese college students,it is indispensable to study the using of VAS of non-English majors.Secondly,the relevant research results are also inconsistent,that is,some studies found that VAS is significantly related to the level of vocabulary knowledge,but some studies presented that the correlation between the two is not strong,so the relationship between the two needs to be further explored and verified.Thirdly,in VASs,there is little research on the differences between paradigmatic association strategy and syntagmatic association strategy in terms of vocabulary breadth and depth,and the research mainly focuses on the differences in mental lexicon between L2 learners and native speakers.Therefore,the role of syntagmatic,paradigmatic and other association strategies in the development of vocabulary knowledge is another starting point of this study.In order to verify the correlation between VAS and the level of vocabulary knowledge,and to understand the relationship between the use of each sub-strategy and vocabulary breadth and depth,this study will use a combination of quantitative research and qualitative research to conduct a survey on non-English major college students through the VAS Questionnaire,Vocabulary Size Test paper and Word Associates Format paper.In the last phase of the study,based on the results of the questionnaire on the frequency of non-English majors’ use of VAS,a semi-structured interview survey will be conducted on the factors affecting their use of VAS.Through the above methods,three questions are addressed in this study:(1)What are the frequency and differences of non-English majors’ use of VAS,and are there any difference between grades,subjects and vocabulary knowledge level?(2)Can vocabulary knowledge level predict the use of VAS?(3)What are the factors affecting non-English majors’ choice and use of VAS?Through the analysis,it is found that: 1)non-English majors’ usage frequency of VAS is at the middle level,and the usage frequency of morphological association strategies is the highest,also,there are significant differences in the usage frequency of VAS among non-English majors of different grades and subjects.The usage frequency of VAS increases with the rise of grades and vocabulary knowledge,while there is no significant difference on the use of VAS between arts learners and sciences learners;2)There is a correlation between vocabulary breadth and depth and VAS,and regression analysis showed that the breadth and depth of vocabulary had a significant predictive effect on the usage frequency of VAS;3)Through questionnaires and interviews,it is found that the main factors affecting non-English majors’ use of VAS are: learning awareness,basic knowledge of phonology,basic knowledge of morphology,understanding level of VAS,learning motivation,complexity of vocabulary itself and etc.It can be seen that the research on the differences in the use of VAS can continue to be deepened.Teachers can provide different VASs in future college English teaching to help students acquire more vocabulary knowledge,and non-English majors can also better understand VASs and use them in actual vocabulary memory activities.