Chinese L2 Learners’ Depth of Vocabulary Knowledge and Its Role in Reading Comprehension

Abstract

Using a Chinese Word Associates Test (WAT‐C), this study examined the vocabulary depth of second language learners of Chinese and its contribution to the learners’ reading comprehension. Results showed no significant effects of word frequency, word class (i.e., adjectives vs. verbs), and type of association relationships (i.e., paradigmatic vs. syntagmatic) on learners’ WAT‐C performance. More important, vocabulary depth was found to be a significant and unique predictor of reading comprehension over and above vocabulary size. On the other hand, the relative contributions of vocabulary depth and size depended on what types of texts were read and what comprehension skills were assessed. Specifically, for the long passage comprehension task with questions testing literal comprehension, vocabulary size was a more important predictor, whereas for the short passage comprehension task with questions testing inferencing, vocabulary depth was a more important predictor. These findings were discussed in light of the different levels of lexical complexity between the short and long passages and the different cognitive processing demands the questions of the two comprehension tasks placed on learners.

Analytic relations versus syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations of vocabulary depth knowledge: Their correlation and prediction to academic reading comprehension of EFL learners

“…Both aspects of the depth of vocabulary knowledge, measured by paradigmatic relation and syntagmatic relation, and analytical relations jointly and significantly contributed to the dependent variable, academic reading comprehension. The result of the present study corroborated other previous findings of L2 learners of English (e.g., Qian 1998Qian , 1999Qian , 2002Li and Kirby 2015;Zhang and Yang 2016) even though the cited studies did not include morphological knowledge and analytical relations under the depth of vocabulary knowledge test. On the other hand, analytical relations of the depth of vocabulary knowledge contributed the most to explain the variance in academic reading comprehension than other parts of depth of vocabulary knowledge represented by both syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations and morphological knowledge.…”

“…Consequently, measures that have the capability of evaluating vocabulary depth knowledge efficaciously are crucially pursued. The rationale behind this is that so far L2/FL research have presented "a clear imbalance" (p. 699) concerning its multidimensionality, especially with respect to vocabulary depth knowledge (Zhang and Yang 2016).…”

“…Vocabulary aspect of language learning and teaching has received significant attention among vocabulary researchers, and the dimension of vocabulary in terms of language teaching and learning has been substantially researched in second language (L2) assessment, acquisition, and instruction (Schmitt 2010;Zhang and Yang 2016). Vocabulary knowledge plays a significant role in L2 learning and teaching, and this has been well-documented (Nation 1983;Schmitt 2008;Choi and Zhang 2018).…”

The Contribution of Syntactic and Lexical Knowledge to Foreign Language Reading Comprehension

“…It can be concluded that the VLT might have overlapped with the words found in the WAT and prevented the depth factor from attaining significance. On the contrary, Zhang & Yang (2016) revealed that lexical breadth and depth contributed differently across different L2 reading tasks. The researchers found that lexical depth contributed more to short texts while the contribution of lexical breadth was more to long reading tasks.…”

The Relationship Between EFL Students’ Word-Knowledge in a Text and Their Reading Comprehension as Demonstrated by Saudi University Students

“…4) Another study should explore not only the vocabulary knowledge, here referring mostly to vocabulary size, but also the depth of vocabulary. Studies such as those of Qian (1999) and Zhang & Yang (2016), found that the depth of vocabulary knowledge was more indicator of reading comprehension. However, Li & Kirby (2014) did not find a statistically significant difference between size, i.e.…”