The Relative Significance Of Syntactic Knowledge And Vocabulary Breadth In The Prediction Of Chinese Efl Learners' Reading Comprehension Test Performance

Founded on componential model of reading, Nation's construct of vocabulary breadth test and structuralists'view of syntactic knowledge, this paper attempts to investigate the relative significance of vocabulary breadth and syntactic knowledge in the prediction of Chinese EFL learners'reading comprehension test performance and whether the relative significance is moderated by the learners'different L2 proficiency. An experiment including three tests was carried out with 68 sophomores in Anhui Medical University. The findings show that: 1) there is a positive linear correlation between the learners'vocabulary breadth and their performance on reading comprehension test, with the correlation coefficient—r being 0.441; the students'syntactic knowledge also positively correlates with their reading comprehension, with r being 0.491; 2) vocabulary breadth can account for 44.1% of variance in reading comprehension test performance, while 49.1% of reading comprehension can be predicted by syntactic knowledge; thus syntactic knowledge outperforms vocabulary breadth in predictive power and emerges as the stronger predictor of reading comprehension test performance; 3) the relative significance of syntactic knowledge over vocabulary breadth in the prediction of reading comprehension does not change with the EFL learners'different L2 proficiency. The findings of this paper provide implications for both reading instruction and remediation of reading problems.