| Vocabulary is the cornerstone of language and reading is an important language skill in English learning. There are many studies of vocabulary (especially vocabulary size) or reading comprehension both in China and abroad, but there are some of the relationships between the two. Even with the small number of studies that have assessed the relationship between vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension in L2, the majority focus on breadth of vocabulary knowledge. Even in these researches the results that the researchers had obtained were not consistent. And the studies about the role the depth of vocabulary played in reading comprehension were not many. Even in the small number of studies the result obtained was not completely concerted. Given such situation, this present study explores the relationships between vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension in English as a foreign language (EFL) and thus provides a correlational study from an applied linguistics perspective.This study is based on the theory of lexical competence by Schmitt & Mccarthy (1997), the framework of word knowledge, and the theory of instrumentalist hypothesis by Anderson &Freebody(1985).The first step is testing vocabulary size and depth of vocabulary knowledge, and the second is testing reading comprehension. 73 second-year non-English majors (geography and economic management) took part in the study and three tests were conducted respectively examining their vocabulary size, depth of vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension. Vocabulary size was tested by a new version of the Vocabulary Levels Test originally designed by Nation (1983, 1990), and now revised and expanded and presented validity evidence by Schmitt and Clapham (2001). Depth of vocabulary knowledge was tested by a paper which adopted Read's (1997, 1998) Word Associates Format. The reading comprehension test was a standardized multiple-choice test taken from the reading comprehension section of CET 4 (College English Test—Band Four). SPSS 16.0 (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) was employed for Pearson correlation analysis.The results showed: (1) there is significant and positive correlation between breadth of vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension but coefficient of correlation is not high; so is significantly positive between depth of vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension but coefficient of correlation is a bit higher than between the first two. (2) there is significantly positive and high inter-correlation between VS and DVK. (3) there is positive correlation between breadth of vocabulary knowledge and four various test types in reading comprehension, but only coefficient of correlation between breadth of vocabulary knowledge and QUW (Questions of Understanding Words) is higher; so is positive correlation between depth of vocabulary knowledge and four various test types in reading comprehension and coefficient of correlation between DVK and QUW is lower than the first two.Based on results of the present study, it is revealed that vocabulary learning is much more than learning as many words as possible. Learners must learn to master deep knowledge concerning individual words in various aspects. To improve reading comprehension, at least two aspects need serious attention for instructors and learners. First, so far as vocabulary itself is concerned, in addition to primary meanings of words, synonymy and polysemy are also important elements that should be introduced in the classroom; syntactic properties of words, in particular their collocational relations with other words are also well worth learners'attention, since the levels of these aspects of word knowledge are strongly associated with those of reading comprehension. Second, instructors and learners can't simply pay attention to vocabulary, since the results of the present study and of other researchers'study showed the interrelationship between vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension differed greatly. Therefore, instructors firstly give consideration to vocabulary teaching, in particular the teaching about depth of vocabulary knowledge; at the same time, instructors should pay attention to other aspects that affect reading comprehension such as background information, well-knit grammar knowledge about English, and some reading strategies etc.This study, however, is not without its shortcomings. The present study investigated the contribution of vocabulary knowledge to reading comprehension. The study did not look into the relationship between vocabulary and other language skills, such as listening and speaking has not been discussed. So future research would benefit from these language skills. Besides, the present study only discussed the relationship between reading and vocabulary, while the relationship between reading and other aspects that affect reading comprehension, such as reading strategies and background information and so on has not been concerned. Therefore, future research can be made in this respect.
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