The importance of vocabulary knowledge

The immenseness of expression companionshipIntroductionCHAPTER 1INTRODUCTION1.1 dry land and motivationThe aim of the record thesis is to check over the human relationship amongst EFL learners insight and breadth of style experience1 and the extent to which diction familiarity contributes to comprehend comprehension in English as a outside(prenominal) run-in2. everywhere the last 20 years mental lexicon has expunged a to a greater extent prominent role within the subject area of molybdenum language accomplishment look, and wording is no longer a neglected aspect of language learning as it was designated by Paul Meara in 1980. While exploreers in apply linguistics were previously concerned importantly with the development of learners grammatical, and to about extent phonological, competence, more attention is now being paid to their lexical competence. This has happened as a consequence of the growing realisation that lexical competence forms an importa nt start out of learners communicative competence in a foreign language. As ob resolved by McCarthy (1990 viii) in the introduction to his book expressionNo matter how well the student learns grammar, no matter how successfully the sounds of L2 are mastered, without words to express a wide range of meanings, communication in an L2 just substructurenot happen in any meaningful way. The importance of wording experience in communicative competence has similarly been accented by Meara who has argued that lexical competence is at the heart of communicative competence (1996a 35) and that verbiage intimacy is heavily implicated in all concrete language attainments (Meara and Jones, 1988 80). In order to fully uncover the role of verbiage noesis in jiffy language use, we therefore take away to seek the extent to which it contributes to different language skills. The above claims by Meara puddle been solidly supported by findings from a considerable number of semiempirical s tudies investigate the relationship among learners vocabulary knowledge and their version comprehension. Such studies have found that vocabulary knowledge is a significant determinant of reading success in L1 as well as L2. However, as provide be come evident in the present thesis, very shrimpy seek has intercommunicate the relationship between vocabulary knowledge and the skill of auditory sense in L2 and, at present, we can only tentatively assume that vocabulary knowledge allow for also play some soma of role in learners perceive comprehension in English as a foreign language. Research of the relationship between vocabulary knowledge and listen is important as findings from studies of reading cannot automatically be applied to listen despite the fact that reading and earshot are both(prenominal) receptive skills.The present deliberate is thus motivated by a critical deprivation of empirical research on the relationship between vocabulary knowledge and listening co mprehension and by the resultant need to explore the extent to which learners vocabulary knowledge pull up stakes contribute to their listening success in L2. A prerequisite for exploring the relationship between vocabulary knowledge and listening, or any other language skill, is a kick the bucket notion of what is involved in being lexically competent in a foreign language. A however motivation behind the field of view therefore springs from the need to gain more insight into the nature of learners vocabulary knowledge. As evidenced in the research literature, the field suffers from a lack of consensus as to ways of delimit learners vocabulary knowledge, partly due to the complexity and multi-dimensionality of the construct. Very often the relationship between vocabulary knowledge and L2 writ of execution has been addressed simply from the perspective of vocabulary surface. However, as other dimensions of learners vocabulary knowledge have been recognised, notably the dimen sion of profundity, we need to empirically investigate how such dimensions interact and how they can make individual contributions to learners language use.1.2 Aims and research questionsThe overriding aim of the thesis is to empirically investigate the relationships between perspicaciousness and breadth of vocabulary knowledge, andvocabulary knowledge and listening comprehension in English as a foreign language.The point of departure for this probe is the construct of vocabulary knowledge, specifically information of vocabulary knowledge. Although the notion of depth in L2 learners vocabulary has received an increasing degree of attention in recent vocabulary research, the construct severely lacks conceptual clarity. For this reason an uninflected aim of the thesis is to provide a clear and consistent notional framework for describing and operationalising the construct of depth of vocabulary knowledge. This is done by gulp on research within the field of L2 vocabulary acquis ition and testing. The analytic aim then serves as a prerequisite for empirically analyse the following two main research questionsTo what extent are EFL learners depth and breadth of vocabulary knowledge inter associate?To what extent is vocabulary knowledge associated with successful listening comprehension in English as a foreign language?While the prototypic research question addresses the interrelationship between two dimensions of learners vocabulary knowledge, namely a qualitative and vicenary dimension, the flash research question is concerned with the extent to which these two dimensions exit contribute to successful listening comprehension in English as a foreign language. The above research questions lead be addressed through an empirical cultivation comprising one hundred Danish advanced learners of English. The suppositional primer and the methodology of this study result be introduced below.1.3 Theoretical basis Although the present study draws on researc h in different fields, it is first and foremost a study rooted within the field of second language vocabulary knowledge and acquisition. The widely recognised speculative trace between depth and breadth of vocabulary knowledge pull up stakes serve as a suppositional basis for reviewing different ways of defining and operationalising L2 learners vocabulary knowledge and for empirically investigating the relationship between quantifiable and qualitative aspects of learners vocabulary knowledge and their listening comprehension.In exploring whether vocabulary knowledge is associated with successful listening comprehension in L2, the study also draws on theory and research from the field of L1 and L2 listening. Prevalent theoretical models of listening and listening comprehension will be outlined, and genes assumed to influence successful listening will be exposit, but this count on is far from exhaustive and will only serve as a backdrop for examining the role of vocabulary in listening comprehension. This will what is more be evident from the theoretical framework developed to describe and explore the relationship between vocabulary knowledge and listening comprehension in the study. This framework draws on concepts from vocabulary as well as listening research, but the pivotal factor of the framework is vocabulary knowledge, emphasising that this is the main area of research in the study.In attempting to operationalise vocabulary knowledge and develop instruments that can tap learners depth of vocabulary knowledge within the background of the present research design, the study furthermore draws on concepts from testing theory and language testing research. However, the study will limit itself to primarily draw on research within the field of vocabulary testing and in particular focus on the estimate of depth of vocabulary knowledge. As will become evident, depth of vocabulary knowledge is frequently conceptualised in relation to what is made possible by assessment instruments, and the construct often becomes an artefact of the instruments used to assess it. This authority that an important aspect of reviewing how this construct has been defined in various research contexts is to examine the way in which it has been operationalised. In view of this, concepts mainly related to vocabulary testing will be drawn upon in the present study. In addition to this, it is important to note that the vocabulary tests developed in the study are intended entirely as research tools that can be used for the investigation of learners vocabulary knowledge within the context of the present research design. No attempts have been made to develop generic wine and practical vocabulary tests that might be used for other kinds of research or pedagogical purposes.1.4 Data and methodologyThe empirical study comprises 100 Danish EFL learners who are all first-year students of English at the Copenhagen business concern School. These participants are given a range of tests intended to tap the depth and breadth of their vocabulary knowledge as well as their listening comprehension in English. While some of the tests are standardised measures of vocabulary size and listening comprehension, others have been designed specifically for the present study to assess the participants depth of vocabulary knowledge. Hence, a central aspect of the methodology is the operationalisation of depth of vocabulary knowledge. Different theoretical approaches to the construct will be discussed and these will serve as a basis for operationalising the construct from two distinctly different perspectives. The quantitative information collected through these tests will be subjected to different kinds of statistical analyses to explore relationships between the different variables of the study. SPSS3 is chosen as the statistical program used for the analysis of the data and the headliner statistical methods will be correlational and multiple regression anal yses. As noted above, very little research has been done on the relationship between vocabulary knowledge and listening comprehension in L2 and none of this research has addressed the role of depth of vocabulary knowledge in listening. This means that there is little solid ground for the present study to build on and it must therefore be characterised as an beta study.1.5 Structure of the thesisThe thesis falls in two main parts. The first part, comprising Chapters 2 and 3, provides the theoretical background for the thesis, while the second part, comprising Chapters 4 to 7, describes the theoretical framework of the empirical study as well as the research design, and presents and discusses the results of the study. Although Chapter 4 is included in the empirical part, it can be viewed as a bridge between the two parts of the thesis. This will become evident from the description of the chapters below.Chapter 2 constitutes the main theoretical chapter of the thesis. This chapter pro vides an account of different ways in which the constructs of depth and breadth of vocabulary knowledge have been defined and operationalised in the research literature. Furthermore, the chapter presents two comprehensive conceptualisations of lexical competence and ability that attempt to integrate different dimensions of vocabulary of knowledge and explain their interrelationships. Chapter 3 examines the role of vocabulary knowledge in listening comprehension. While the first part of the chapter presents identify concepts related to listening, the second part focuses explicitly on the role of lexis in listening comprehension. This includes a plan description of word recognition models, followed by a more cypher review of findings from empirical studies investigating the relationship between vocabulary knowledge and listening comprehension in L2.Chapter 4 outlines the theoretical framework underpinning the empirical study. Drawing on theoretical approaches and empirical findings dealt with in Chapters 2 and 3, the key constructs of the study will be defined and the rationale for including them will be provided. Moreover, the chapter proposes a framework for describing the relationship between vocabulary knowledge and listening comprehension and presents a number of more specific research questions that will be addressed in the study.Chapter 5 presents the research design of the study, describing how the theoretical framework is operationalised. This includes information about participants, research instruments, the data collection and the data analyses. Furthermore, a pre-testing phase involving native speakers of English will be described and the results of a pilot study will be reported. Chapter 6 describes the statistical analyses conducted and presents the results of the study in six phases. These phases address the various, specific research questions of the study.Chapter 7 interprets the findings of the study, discusses implications for theory and as sessment and suggests directions for future research. Furthermore, the chapter addresses a number of limitations of the study and includes suggestions for further analyses of the data collected.Chapter 8 sums up the main findings and contributions of the thesis.1 The concepts of depth and breadth of vocabulary knowledge will be defined in the chapters to come. However, at this point, it should be noted that the terms breadth of vocabulary knowledge and vocabulary size will be used interchangeably in the thesis.2 No billet will be made between English as second language and English as foreign language (EFL). The terms second language and foreign language will be used interchangeably. 3 statistical Package for the Social Sciences