Productive Vocabulary Development, English Vocabulary Learning Strategies And Correlation Analyses

Vocabulary learning plays a crucial role in foreign language learning, a lot of researches have been focused in this field and great achievement has been made. But few researches especially empirical researches have been done on productive vocabulary development. As an important branch of second language acquisition, vocabulary learning strategy has drawn attention of linguists, foreign language teachers and learners. A lot of researches have proved that effective vocabulary learning strategies can facilitate and improve language learning.Base on vocabulary knowledge framework proposed by Richard and Nation, previous researches on productive vocabulary and learning strategies posed by O'Malley and Chamot, the present research conducted investigation on productive vocabulary development and learning strategy use of 21 English majors in Sichuan University, attempting to explore the pattern of their productive vocabulary development and vocabulary learning strategy use, and correlations between the two.Present research adopted a vocabulary quantity testing program RANGE developed by Nation and Coxhead to test the development of subjects' productive vocabulary. Findings from the test of lexical token, type, and lexical frequency profile and lexical variation show that: (1) the subjects' productive vocabulary development appeared in most word levels. Although they relied a lot on high frequency words (the first 1000 word level), the percentage decreased in the second test; (2) the subjects did not show much significant difference at the first 1000 and third 1000 word levels; (3) the significant improvement was found in the second 1000 word level and the low frequency level-- the beyond 3000 word level; (4) the subjects didn't improve in the respect of lexical variation during four semesters of English learning. The above findings indicate that subjects' productive vocabulary development appears variable characteristic.Findings from vocabulary learning strategies show that: (1) the subjects generally employed a large variety of EVLS (English Vocabulary Learning Strategies) at three dimensions (cognitive, metacognitive and social); (2) the most frequently employed EVLS include dictionary use, knowledge emphasized-R, learner autonomy, collocational association, contextualization, word usage, grouping, self-management and mechanical repetition, phonological association, semantic association; (3) statistical analyses indicate that most of the subjects were rather mature vocabulary learners in dictionary use, repetition, and contextualization, but they were passive in using social activities, word formation, imagery, grouping strategies.General and detailed analyses of the correlation between vocabulary learning strategies and indices of productive vocabulary knowledge reveal distinctive feature of the correlation. (1)Only a few correlation coefficients appear significant, which is the most obvious feature of correlation between different indices of productive vocabulary and various vocabulary learning strategies in the present study which is inconsistent with intuitive assumption. (2)Significant correlation does not appear with any various strategies at the third 1000 word level and lexical variation which indicates that strategy use does not have significant influence productive vocabulary development in these respects. (3) Significant correlation coefficients appear comparatively high which indicate the relative strategies have positive and considerable influence on productive vocabulary development.