The Study On The Relation Among Breadth Of Vocabulary Knowledge,Depth Of Vocabulary Knowledge And Reading Comprehension For Non-English Majors

Vocabulary is the foundation of language acquisition whether in first language learning or in second language learning,it is the basis of other language skills as well,such as reading,writing,listening and translation.As the important component of second language acquisition,vocabulary acquisition has attracted more and more attention by researchers and L2 learners in the recent years.In order to explore the relationship between vocabulary knowledge and students' language proficiency,many researchers have made related studies and provided some theoretical reference for vocabulary knowledge learning.Based on Qian's(1999)vocabulary knowledge framework,this thesis attempts to investigate the interrelation among breadth of vocabulary knowledge,depth of vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension of non-English majors under the ESL environment.The current study took 104 second-year students in Wuhan Traffic Vocational College as the subjects,and they were from three different majors and classes.To test their vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension,all the students took four tests,vocabulary size test,depth of vocabulary knowledge test(word associates test,grammatical knowledge test)and reading comprehension test.Among all these tests,Read's Word Associates Format(1998)was used as the instrument to measure vocabulary depth knowledge,which included word meaning and collocation.Grammatical knowledge test was used for complementing the WAT to test subjects' depth of vocabulary knowledge.The analysis results indicate that:(1)the scores on vocabulary size test,depth of vocabulary knowledge test are positively correlated with reading comprehension,and vocabulary depth is highly positively correlated with reading scores,even higher than vocabulary size;(2)both vocabulary size test and depth of vocabulary knowledge test have explanation power on reading comprehension,while depth of vocabulary knowledge(0.516)has stronger explanation on reading than vocabulary size(0.14),and it has made unique contribution(0.379)to scores on reading comprehension on the basis of vocabulary size;(3)vocabulary size almost has no direct influence on reading comprehension(0.062),but depth of vocabulary knowledge has significant influence on reading comprehension(0.690),scores on vocabulary size has direct impact on depth of vocabulary knowledge(0.453).Based on the analysis results above,we can draw a conclusion that vocabulary breadth and depth knowledge are both closely related with reading comprehension,while depth of vocabulary knowledge has greater influence and stronger explanation on reading scores,it plays a more significant role in reading comprehension.In addition,breadth of vocabulary knowledge also has direct impact on depth of vocabulary knowledge.Therefore,for non-English major students,vocabulary acquisition does not just mean the number of words that you have learned,but also includes the learning of depth of vocabulary knowledge.And at least two aspects of vocabulary depth knowledge should be paid attention by teachers and learners in the present study:word meaning(synonyms,polysemys)and word collocation.As the important factors in reading comprehension,breadth and depth cannot be neglected by L2 learners,and teachers are expected to integrate them into English teaching process.