论文总字数：34140字

摘 要

1. Introduction

2. Literature Review

2.1 Breadth of Vocabulary Knowledge ２

2.2 Depth of Vocabulary Knowledge ２

2.3 The Role of Vocabulary Knowledge in Listening Comprehension ２

3. Methodology

3.1 Research questions ４

3.2 Participants ４

3.3 Instruments ５

3.3.1 Vocabulary Size Test ５

3.3.2 The Depth of Vocabulary Knowledge Test ５

3.3.3 Listening Comprehension Test ６

3.4 Procedure ６

4. Results

4.1 Basic Description of the Data ８

4.2 Correlations among VST, DVKT and LCT ９

4.3 The Predictive Power of Vocabulary Knowledge in Listening Comprehension １０

5. Discussion

5.1 Interrelations among VST, DVKT and Listening Comprehension １２

5.2 The Predictive Power of VST and DVKT in Listening Comprehension １２

6. Conclusion

6.1 Implication １４

6.2 Limitations and Suggestions for Further Research １４

References

Acknowledgements

It is one of the real challenges that I have ever met in my life to finish this paper. This paper is an outcome of support, encouragement and love that I received from a great many people. I would like to take this opportunity to express my sincere thanks to those who have contributed to the completion of this paper.

First of all, my greatest thankfulness is to my supervisor, Professor Han Yawen, for his painstaking effort in guiding me through the whole stage of writing this paper. During my preparation for this paper, Professor Han helped me in choosing the topic, collecting samples, and accessing the software for treating the data. His profound knowledge and insights broadened my horizon in linguistic studies. It would be impossible for me to finish this job without his patient guidance, continuous encouragement and generous support. What’s more, it is my great honor to benefit from his personalities and diligence, and I believe that will be helpful throughout my life.

I would like to thank all the other teachers who have imparted to me so much valuable knowledge and provided me with guidance, assistance and concern throughout my four-years’ study and daily life at the university.

In addition, special thanks go to my dear friends and fellow students, who have accompanied me throughout the four years at the university.

They shared happiness and sadness with me and taught me a lot. I always consider our friendship an invaluable treasure and a constant driving force to me.

Last but not least, I would like to extend my grateful thanks to and deepest respect for my parents, who have always been encouraging me to finish this paper. It is their constant encouragement that gave me spiritual support to overcome all the difficulties I encountered in the paper writing and other aspects of my life.

Ji Jianxia

Abstract

This study investigates the relationship between vocabulary knowledge and academic listening comprehension. 101 Chinese EFL learners with the same English proficiency from a Chinese University participated in the study, which involved the vocabulary size test(VST), depth of vocabulary knowledge(DVK), and listening comprehension test(LCT). The first two tests that the Vocabulary Size Test and the Words Associates Test were administered to measure breadth and depth of vocabulary knowledge. Listening comprehension was measured by an academic listening part of the International English Language Testing System(IELTS). The participants were required to complete 180 multiple choice questions and then to listen to academic dialogues or monologues to finish the tests. Pearson correlation showed that both breadth and depth of vocabulary knowledge had strong correlation with academic listening comprehension. Multiple regression analysis revealed that the depth of vocabulary knowledge was a good predictor of listening proficiency. Pedagogical implications of the results for academic English listening teaching are discussed.

Key words: breadth of vocabulary knowledge, depth of vocabulary knowledge, academic listening comprehension

中文摘要

本实验旨在研究词汇广度知识与词汇深度知识对听力理解的影响。101位来自中国某大学英语水平相当的英语学习者参加了此次实验。实验采用14组难度递增的共140个词汇测试受试者的词汇广度，采用40道不定项选择题测试词汇深度，采用雅思听力水平测试中学术听力部分的对话或独白试题测试受试者听力理解能力。皮尔森相关性分析发现词汇广度知识、词汇深度知识与学术听力理解存在显著的正相关关系；多元回归分析结果显示词汇深度知识对学术听力理解的影响更为显著。本实验研究讨论对学术听力有一定教学意义。

关键词：词汇广度知识，词汇深度知识，学术听力理解

1. Introduction

It is widely acknowledged that vocabulary knowledge is a reliable predictor of learners’ proficiency in foreign language. (Staehr, 2009) Empirical studies (Meara, 1996; Qian, 1999; Read, 1989; Wesche amp; Paribakht, 1996), proved that ‘breadth’ (in single words, the number of words are known) and ‘depth’ (how well the words are known) are the two dimensions of vocabulary knowledge. (Anderson amp; Freebody, 1981) Both breadth and depth of vocabulary knowledge are regarded as the key to command the listening context. (Qian, 1998) Too many investigations about vocabulary breadth sprang up in 1980s. While the depth of vocabulary knowledge was not researched until 21^st century in China. In addition, most of the studies about vocabulary knowledge focused on reading, much more than listening.

Listening comprehension is regarded as a receptive skill of learning foreign language, which plays an indispensable role in language learning. (Goh, 2000; Mendelsohn, 2008) It is a conscious processing of the auditory stimuli that decoding information in communication.(Richard amp; Lynn, 2010) Many language learners consider listening as the most difficult skill of language learning.(Graham, 2003; Hasan, 2000; Kim, 2002) Listening comprehension can be affected by many variables, one of which is lexical competence. More efficient word recognition may contribute to the success of listening. (Matthews amp; Cheng, 2015)

The theoretical motivation for this study is grounded in a lack of empirical studies on exploring the role of vocabulary knowledge in listening comprehension. Armed with the knowledge above, most empirical studies (Staehr, 2008) lay emphasis on the vocabulary size. More attention should be paid to the depth of vocabulary, which is of great significance as well. Therefore, it is essential to assess the role of depth and breadth of vocabulary knowledge and to probe the correlation between vocabulary knowledge and listening comprehension. In addition, this study also explores to what extent that two dimensions of vocabulary knowledge contribute to listening comprehension, and thus explore some implications for teaching listening skills to EFL students whose first language is Chinese.

2. Literature Review

2.1 Breadth of Vocabulary Knowledge

Breadth of vocabulary knowledge is defined as vocabulary size. It refers to “the number of words the meaning of which one has at least superficial knowledge” (Qian, 2002). It has long been acknowledged that vocabulary size plays an important role in EFL learners’ academic competency in English (Nation,1993; Staehr,2008). Vocabulary size is such an important part of language proficiency that it is necessary to develop tests that can provide reliable estimates of the number of words learners know. In view of the critical role that vocabulary size plays in language proficiency, considerable progress has been made in validating tests in measuring the size of a learner’s vocabulary (Lauferamp;Nation,1999; Nationamp;Beglar,2007; Schmittamp;Clapham, 2001). These studies provided basic measures of the learners’ overall vocabulary size.

2.2 Depth of Vocabulary Knowledge

Depth of vocabulary knowledge usually refers to how well one knows a lexical item (Qian, 2002). Researchers have noted the complexity and multidimensionality of word knowledge and have approached the construct of depth in a number of different ways (Read, 2004). The earliest definition could be traced back to Richards (1976), as he proposed that knowing a word means knowing its relative frequency and collation, limitations on use, syntactic behavior, basic forms and deviations, association with other words, semantic value, and many different meanings associated with a given word. Qian (1998) refined the theoretical frameworks of Richards by including pronunciation, spelling, morphological properties and syntactic properties to the depth of vocabulary knowledge. In view of the complexity and multidimensionality of vocabulary depth, Read’s (1993, 1998) Word Associates Test were widely used to investigate EFL learners’ vocabulary depth.

2.3 The Role of Vocabulary Knowledge in Listening Comprehension

Although previous studies provide some hints that the vocabulary knowledge is significantly correlated with reading comprehension (Qian, 2002; Staehr, 2008). However, such findings cannot be overgeneralized to listening because listening is not simply an auditory version of reading (Lynchamp;Mendelsohn, 2002). This is a strong motivation to explore the strength of the relationship between vocabulary knowledge and listening comprehension.

Staehr (2009) invited 115 Danish EFL learners to take a series of paper-and-pencil tests, including breadth of vocabulary knowledge, depth of vocabulary knowledge and listening comprehension. Both two dimensions of vocabulary knowledge were found to be positively correlated with listening comprehension. In this case, the study findings revealed that the breadth of vocabulary knowledge is the basic component in successful listening comprehension, the dominant role of vocabulary depth was not uncovered.

More recently, Teng (2016) explored the predictive role of vocabulary depth in listening comprehension. The study findings indicated that both breadth and depth of vocabulary knowledge were strongly correlated with listening comprehension. In addition, a multiple regression analysis revealed that depth of vocabulary knowledge had a stronger predictive power in listening comprehension success than breadth of vocabulary knowledge.

3. Methodology

3.1 Research questions

This study aims to provide a better understanding of the relationship between vocabulary knowledge and academic listening comprehension. It explored that both breadth and depth of vocabulary knowledge were positively correlated to academic listening comprehension. Further, it also measured the value of vocabulary depth as a stronger predictor of academic listening comprehension. The following research questions are addressed.

RQ1. To what extend do breadth and depth of vocabulary knowledge correlate to academic listening comprehension?

RQ2. To what extend do breadth and depth of vocabulary knowledge contribute to the prediction of listening comprehension? Which dimension is a stronger predictor of academic listening comprehension?

3.2 Participants

The data sample for this study consisted of 101 EFL learners from a university in China. The participants’ age ranged from 19 to 23(M=21, Std.=0.607). All of them were native speakers of Chinese and none had ever lived in a country where English is the official language. They all had nine years of formal English instruction as well as similar educational backgrounds. When the study was carried out, the participants had already passed CET4 and were preparing for CET6. College English Test(CET) which is administered by the National College English Testing Committee in China provides reliable statistics of students’ English proficiency (Teng, 2016). Therefore, it was assumed that the participants had mastered 3000-4000 word families according to their performance on CET4. They all had the same English proficiency.

3.3 Instruments

Three tests (a vocabulary size test, a depth of vocabulary knowledge test and an academic listening comprehension test) were administered .

3.3.1 Vocabulary Size Test

The breadth of vocabulary knowledge was measured by using Nation and Beglar’s (2007) Vocabulary Size Test (VST), and it was administered in the form of questionnaire to the participants. This test measured vocabulary size from the 1^st 1000 to the 14^th 1000 word family in English language. Each 1000-word family comprised of 10 multiple-choice items, thus 140 multiple-choice items for this test in total. Following is one of the items from the 2^nd 1000-word family:

UPSET: I am upset.

1. tired
2. famous
3. rich
4. unhappy

According to Nation (2007), test takers were required to select one option from the four choices to give a definition to the given word. Each item was awarded one point for the correct answer and the maximum score was 140 points. Multiplying the total score by 100 was the final score for vocabulary size test. This well-known instrument was chosen because it was accepted by many researchers as an accurate measure of vocabulary size. (Nguyenamp;Nation,2011; Teng, 2015, 2016).

3.3.2 The Depth of Vocabulary Knowledge Test

The Word Associates Test (WAT) developed by Read (1998) was applied to measure participants’ depth of vocabulary knowledge. This test was based on three vocabulary dimensions: synonymy, polysemy and collection. It comprised of 40 items, each item included a stimulus word and eight options to measure whether the participants could identify the collocational, synonymous, part-whole and whole-part relationships among words. Among the eight words, four of them were correlated to the given word. Following is an item form the test paper:

fresh

another cool easy raw cotton heat language water

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