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Title:
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Depth of Vocabulary Knowledge: Assessing its role in adults' reading comprehension in English as a second language
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Author:
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David Qian
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Email:
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click here to access email
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Homepage:
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http://www.engl.polyu.edu.hk/department/academicstaff/QianDavid.html
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Degree Awarded:
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University of Toronto
, Department of Curriculum, Teaching and Learning
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Degree Date:
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1998
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Linguistic Subfield(s):
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Applied Linguistics
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Subject Language(s):
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English
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Director(s):
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Birgit Harley
Esther Gev
Alister Cumming
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Abstract:
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This dissertation research explored the relationships among vocabulary size,depth of vocabulary knowledge, and reading comprehension in English asa second language (ESL). Specifically, using multivariate and content analyses, the research assessed the role of depth of vocabulary knowledgein 74 adult Chinese and Korean speakers' comprehension of generalacademic texts in English. The main study examined to what extent depthof vocabulary knowledge adds to the prediction of reading comprehensionscores over and above the prediction afforded by vocabulary size,employing as instruments a portfolio of vocabulary knowledge tests, areading comprehension test, and a background questionnaire. A follow-upstudy then investigated strategies for processing the meaning of unknownwords used by a subsample of these ESL learners with different depths ofvocabulary knowledge. For this purpose, individual interviews and asurvey questionnaire on reading strategies were used as the main meansof data collection.
Among other findings, the research produced empirical evidencethat: (a) scores on vocabulary size, depth of vocabulary knowledge, andreading comprehension were positively, and closely, related; (b) depth ofvocabulary knowledge made a unique contribution to the prediction ofreading comprehension scores, over and above the prediction afforded byvocabulary size; (c) depth of vocabulary knowledge played a fundamentalrole in these ESL learners' reading comprehension processes; (d) therewas a positive relationship between the learners' depth of vocabularyknowledge and their lexical inferencing ability; and (e) in processing themeaning of unknown words, all learners looked for cues to meaning, butthose with greater depth of vocabulary knowledge appeared to focus moreon word meanings, whereas learners with less depth of vocabularyknowledge tended to focus more on word forms. The results of thisresearch point to the importance and necessity of improving the depth oflearners' vocabulary knowledge in their ESL learning.
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