The Roles Of Vocabulary Knowledge In Reading Comprehension Of Senior High School From The Perspective Of Second Language Vocabulary Acquisition

Second language vocabulary acquisition is the hotspot as well as a central issue inthe research field of L2acquisition. One of the fundamental goals for English learners isto expand their vocabulary knowledge. Vocabulary knowledge including breadth anddepth is the main part of second language vocabulary acquisition, which acts as aprerequisite to the performance of language skills such as reading.This study is based on the continuum model of Second Language VocabularyAcquisition theory and divided the vocabulary knowledge into two dimensions.According to the results of Pearson correlation analysis, the present study elaborated therelationship of vocabulary breadth and vocabulary depth and also revealed the roles ofvocabulary knowledge in reading comprehension of senior high school. Two componentsare involved in vocabulary depth: lexical meaning (synonyms and polysemy) andcollocation knowledge (verb-noun collocation and adjective-noun collocation. Finally, thestudy explored what extent two dimensions of vocabulary knowledge can predictstudents’ reading level of senior high school. Thus, certain recommendations can beproposed to improve the reading comprehension proficiency of senior high schoolstudents by mastering vocabulary knowledge.Vocabulary Level Test used in the present study was originally designed by Nation(2001), which is now slightly changed and revised according to students’ English leveland requirements of senior high school English curriculum standard. A self-adjustingWord Association Test (WAT) is adopted to assess the students’ depth of vocabularyknowledge. Participants in the present research were two classes’ students in grade twoselected from Ganzhou No.3senior high school. Reading Comprehension Test (RCT) is astandardized test with multiple-choice selected from the reading comprehension sectionof the English final exam sponsored by the Bureau of Education of Ganzhou City (held inJune,2012). The software SPSS11.5(Statistical Product and Service Solutions) was usedto conduct data analysis.The relationship between vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension wereexplored by SPSS data analysis:(1) vocabulary breadth and vocabulary depth are interdependent and mutual-promoted.(2) Two dimensions of vocabulary knowledgesignificantly associated with reading comprehension. Pearson correlation analysis showsthat the influence of vocabulary depth on reading comprehension is more revealing thanvocabulary breadth. In vocabulary depth, polysemy acts more active on readingcomprehension than vocabulary collocation.(3) Multiple regression analysis results showthat two dimensions of vocabulary knowledge can predict high school students’ readingcomprehension abilities to a significant extent, with vocabulary depth as a strongerpredictor.Based on the results of the study, if English teachers of the senior high school want toimprove students’ reading comprehension proficiency, they should consider takingadvantage of effect of vocabulary depth on reading except for vocabulary breadth. Firstly,in addition to the lexical meaning, synonyms and polysemy are also very importantelements in the classroom teaching. Secondly, syntax properties of vocabulary, especiallywith the collocations of other words (verb-noun collocation and adjective-nouncollocation), are worthy of the majority of learners attention because vocabularyknowledge and reading comprehension are closely linked.