Roles Of Vocabulary Breadth And Vocabulary Depth In English Majors’ L2 Listening Comprehension

However, due to the fact that what is happening in listening comprehension process is not directly observable, research in this direction is far from being adequate. For that reason, the research in this thesis explores roles of vocabulary breadth and vocabulary depth in L2 listening comprehension—based on Anderson’s(1995) listening comprehension model and Nation’s lexical knowledge framework. Anderson(1995)proposed a listening comprehension process model which broke the language comprehension process down into three stages: Perception, paring and utilization. Among those three stages, Anderson emphasized the importance of lexical knowledge stored in the long-term memory. Nation(1995,2001)posed a lexical knowledge framework in which lexical knowledge was categorized into many dimensions and he suggested that vocabulary breadth and depth were two primary dimensions in measuring lexical knowledge.Three research questions are addressed:1) How does vocabulary breadth impact learners’ performance on L2 listening comprehension?2) How does vocabulary depth impact learners’ performance on L2 listening comprehension?3) What is the interactive impact of vocabulary breadth and vocabulary depth on learners’ performance of listening comprehension?This study measures lexical knowledge from two dimensions: vocabulary breadth and vocabulary depth. Nation’s “Vocabulary Level Test”(1990) and Nation and Beglar’s “Vocabulary Size Test”(2007) were used as tests of vocabulary breadth. Read’s vocabulary collocation test(2008) was selected as test of vocabulary depth. For listening materials, the listening comprehension part of Test for English Majors Band 4 of 2012 was chosen. A total of 60 students participated in the study. The participants were randomly selected English major students at the Shandong University of Finance and Economics who were first semester sophomores. They were asked to complete three tests: a) test of vocabulary breadth through reading and listening; b) test of vocabulary depth; c) listening part of Test for English Majors Band 4 of 2012.Three research questions were addressed by three designs. The one for the first research question is an independent sample design. 60 participants were categorized into four groups according to their vocabulary breadth level and 15 participants each level. The highest level and the lowest level of vocabulary breadth were selected as two independent variables. Data were analyzed by Independent-Samples T Test; the design for the second research question is similar. The highest level and the lowest level of vocabulary depth were picked out as two independent variables. Data were also analyzed by Independent-Samples T Test, in order to find whether there were significant differences between two groups of high and low levels of vocabulary depth; the design for the third research question is a 2×2 between-subjects ANOVA design. Vocabulary breadth and vocabulary depth were two independent variables and there were two levels in each independent variable. Data were analyzed by One-Way ANOVA to examine the interactive impact of vocabulary breadth and vocabulary depth on learners’ performance of listening comprehension. The results showed that the vocabulary breadth of lexical knowledge can significantly influence L2 listening comprehension. Vocabulary depth, can also significantly influence listening comprehension performance. The interactive influence of vocabulary breadth and vocabulary depth is significant whereas vocabulary breadth plays a more important role in L2 listening comprehension. For those students with high level vocabulary breadth, they generally have high level vocabulary depth. While for those who have average level and low level vocabulary breadth, their vocabulary depth is not as good as their vocabulary breadth.To a certain extent, this study has enriched theories on listening comprehension research and proved some theories such as “Text Coverage” theory, “Bottom-Up” Model and Anderson’s Model of Listening Comprehension. It also sheds light on listening comprehension classroom teaching and learning.