词汇学习策略对英语词汇知识影响论文

1、华中科技大学硕士学位论文AbstractVocabulary is crucially important to second language learning, and research intovocabulary has become a hot issue in second language acquisition since the mid-1980s.One of the most important aspects of second language vocabulary acquisition is concernedwith vocabulary learning st

2、rategies.This thesis reported a study on the contribution of English vocabulary learningstrategies to Chinese non-English majors vocabulary knowledge. The aim of this studywas three-fold: (a) to find out the relationship among learners passive vocabularies,controlled active and free active vocabular

3、ies and further investigate the development pathof the three dimensions of vocabulary knowledge; (b) to probe into the strategy use profileof Chinese non-English majors in general, and identify the strategies conducive to learningdifferent dimensions of vocabulary knowledge in particular; (c) to exa

4、mine the predictionmodel of vocabulary learning strategies to learners vocabulary achievement withmotivation involved as a moderator variable.The participants of this study included 206 sophomores majored in science. Threevocabulary tests as well as a vocabulary learning questionnaire were administe

5、red to them.SPSS 13.0 was used for data analysis. The results of Pearson correlations revealed thatlearners passive vocabularies, controlled active and free active vocabularies werecorrelated significantly with each other. One-way ANOVA indicated that the threedimensions of vocabulary knowledge did

6、not develop at the same rate with learnerspassive vocabulary significantly larger than their active vocabulary. One-way ANOVA wasalso applied to probe into the discrepancy between the strategy use of proficientvocabulary learners and those less proficient. It was found that proficient learners used

7、avariety of vocabulary strategies significant more often than their less proficientcounterparts; however, recreational strategy, in particular was found to be usedsignificantly more often by the less proficient group. Multiple regressions were alsoemployed to shed some light on the predication model

8、 of vocabulary learning strategy tolearners vocabulary achievement on three vocabulary tests. It was found that the learnersI华中科技大学硕士学位论文motivation intensity also contributed to learning outcome via interacting with learningstrategies.The limitation of the data collection procedure as well as that o

9、f sampling wasdiscussed in depth. This thesis is concluded by suggesting that the secret to vocabularylearning may include helping students see the relevance of strategy use in learning L2vocabulary, introducing them to the strategies used often by proficient vocabulary learnersand, most importantly

10、, encouraging them to develop their own effective strategies forlearning. Successful learning is not linked to the individual learners frequency of strategyuse, but to his or her orchestration of strategy available to him or her.Key words: Vocabulary learning strategiesMotivationIIVocabulary knowled

11、geVocabulary achievement独创性声明本人声明所呈交的学位论文是我个人在导师指导下进行的研究工作及取得的研究成果。尽我所知，除文中已经标明引用的内容外，本论文不包含任何其他个人或集体已经发表或撰写过的研究成果。对本文的研究做出贡献的个人和集体，均已在文中以明确方式标明。本人完全意识到，本声明的法律结果由本人承担。学位论文作者签名：日期：年月日学位论文版权使用授权书本学位论文作者完全了解学校有关保留、使用学位论文的规定，即：学校有权保留并向国家有关部门或机构送交论文的复印件和电子版，允许论文被查阅和借阅。本人授权华中科技大学可以将本学位论文的全部或部分内容编入有关数据库进行检

12、索，可以采用影印、缩印或扫描等复制手段保存和汇编本学位论文。保密 ，在_年解密后适用本授权书。本论文属于不保密。（请在以上方框内打“”）学位论文作者签名：指导教师签名：日期：年月日日期：年月华中科技大学硕士学位论文IntroductionOverviewSince the 1970s, considerable research attention in second or foreign language (L2)learning has been directed to studying individual differences in language learners. Oneind

13、ividual difference variable, L2 learning strategies, has gained increasing popularityamong researchers and teachers interested in understanding how language is learnt.The study of language learning strategies (LLS) has grown out of attempts to featureproficient language learners. Research on the use

14、 of strategies has revealed good languagelearners tend to use a wider range of ways and use them more frequently to facilitate theirlearning. It is also found that successful learners were more active strategy users who wereconscious of their learning and took initiative to regulate it. They not onl

15、y plan theirlearning activity but also monitor the whole learning process to guarantee a most effectiveway for satisfactory learning outcome, whereas less effective learners displayed littleawareness on this aspect. A close correlation has thus been explored between generallanguage learning achievem

16、ent and learning strategy use.With the regained importance of lexical acquisition in the 1990s, vocabulary is onceagain a buzzword in language pedagogy, and judging by the number of publications, itseems that research in the field is expanding by the minute. However, in spite of theregained interest

17、 in this area, no consensus has been reached over central issues such asthe conceptualization of vocabulary knowledge, and the effectiveness of variousvocabulary learning strategies, the correlations between strategy use and vocabularylearning achievement.To gain further information on some of these

18、 issues, surveying what L2 learnersactually do to facilitate their vocabulary acquisition is a fundamental step. A description ofthe strategic behaviors that learners adopt could shed light on the role that individualdifferences play in lexical learning, which, in turn, could provide some insightful

19、revelation on the strategy clusters that work for the largest number of students in a varietyof vocabulary learning situations.1华中科技大学硕士学位论文The primary aim of the present study was to investigate the strategy use of mainlandChinese non-English majors. The focus was on the general strategy use profil

20、e. Thesecondary aim was to study the correlations among learners passive, controlled active andfree controlled vocabularies. The predicative strength of specific strategy use patterntoward vocabulary proficiency was also examined thoroughly.The Need for the StudyWords are the primary carriers of mea

21、ning, and there is growing evidence that themore extensive ones vocabulary, the higher their language proficiency will be. The sizeof a students vocabulary has been found to correlate closely with reading comprehension(Beglar, 1999; Qian, 2002,) as well as with writing ability (Beglar, 1999; Laufer,

22、 1998;Laufer and Nation, 1995).Provided the crucial role of vocabulary in language learning, learners are misled thatvocabulary learning is the only dominating task. No wonder that it is no longer unusual tocatch college students reciting vocabulary books or even dictionaries to equip themselveswith

23、 a larger vocabulary. During an interview with her sophomore students in a keyuniversity of China, the author was more often than not told that her college students had avocabulary of 4000, 6000 or even a larger one. However, the author noticed during herrating of student composition that there is a

24、 great gap between the vocabulary students canactually use in free writing and the one they claimed they had. A detailed study onstudents Vocabulary Filling section of the final examination also revealed that studentsmight have receptive vocabularies as large as they claimed, but far smaller product

25、iveones.Most models of lexical knowledge distinguish passive/receptive and active/productive vocabulary. It is generally acknowledged that the learning of a word usuallyprogresses from receptive to productive knowledge. Students have receptive knowledge ofa word if they are able to retrieve the appr

26、opriate meaning when reading or hearing theword. Students have a productive knowledge of the word if they are able to produce theappropriate word when speaking or writing. Laufer (1998a) further classified productivevocabulary into controlled production and free production. This distinction distingu

27、ishes2华中科技大学硕士学位论文students ability to produce a word when required to do so by a teacher or test (controlled;Laufer and Nation, 1999) from their competence to produce a word when writing orspeaking on their own (free; Laufer and Nation, 1995; Laufer, 2005).Previous studies on vocabulary test and voc

28、abulary learning strategies (VLS) inChina mainly focused on students receptive knowledge, and few explored the productivevocabulary knowledge, and even less addressed Chinese college learners vocabulary usein free writing and speaking. Therefore, this study is attempted to give a panorama ofChinese

29、college non-English majors vocabulary knowledge by testing both their receptiveand productive vocabulary knowledge, and particular attention will also be extended tolearners free active vocabularies.Another reason to conduct this study is the lack of a validated data collectioninstrument for vocabul

30、ary learning strategies. The strategy inventory of most previousstudies (Wu and Wang, 1998; Zhang, Y. et al 2003; Zhang, P., 2001, 2004) wereself-designed on the basis of a specific theoretical framework, findings of previous workson vocabulary learning strategies, as well as their own vocabulary le

31、arning and teachingexperience. Subjects vocabulary learning experience, however, were neglected in theprocedure of designing strategy inventories. Consequently, it can be reasonably assumedthat their instrument are very likely to fail to capture a comprehensive profile of learnersstrategy use, since

32、 learners strategy use are volatile to many other factors, for instance,learning style, previous learning background, as well as the emergence of new learningtechnology. Thus, the researchers experience might fail to shed light on every possiblestrategy the learners are currently using. Besides, nei

33、ther the reliability nor the validity oftheir questionnaire was reported (Schmitt, 1997; Fan, 2003). The reliability of findingswas, therefore, greatly undermined. The present study attempts to design and validate astrategy questionnaire for data collection based on the collective strength of previo

34、usworks, mainly modeling on Fans (2003) work, but with further improvement.The last two decades witnessed a great number of studies on vocabulary learningstrategies. Most of them focused on individual strategies and a few on general strategy useprofile. Despite the great efforts devoted to this rese

35、arch area, no consensus has beenreached among researchers. A discrepancy between Chinese learners rote style oflearning and their great success in vocabulary learning was widely reported, but few3华中科技大学硕士学位论文studies to date have attempted to account for this so-called discrepancy between surfaceproc

36、essing and learning success. Thus, this study aimed to account for the discrepancy in athorough manner in the hope of gaining some insightful revelation.The strong claim about the correlations between strategy use and learningachievement has also been critiqued. OMalley & Chamot (1990) stressed the

37、importanceof such student characteristics as motivation, aptitude, age, sex, prior education, as well ascultural background and learning styles in the use of learning strategies. Among theseindividual characteristics, learners motivational intensity gained great attention fromresearchers. Ellis (199

38、4) argued that the strength of learners motivation can be expectedto have a causal effect on the quantity of learning strategies they employ. It was assumedthat motivation is an indirect but powerful predicator of learning achievement (Gillette,1994; Macaro, 2006). So this study is also an attempt t

39、o provide empirical evidence to thisassumption.The present study is significant both theoretically and practically. It will provide apanorama for the Chinese non-English majors vocabulary knowledge, both receptivelyand productively. Besides, this study will shed light on the overall pattern of Chine

40、senon-English majors vocabulary learning strategy use and the correlations betweenlearning strategies and learning achievement. This, in turn, is conducive to the furtherconstruction of VLS theory.Research QuestionsThree vocabulary tests assessing learners passive vocabulary, controlled active andfr

41、ee active vocabulary will be administered to all the subjects first. This study attempted toinvestigate the strategy use profile of Chinese non-English majors as well as thecorrelations between strategy use and learners vocabulary achievements.The following questions will be addressed in this study:

42、1) What are the relationships among learners passive, controlled active and free activevocabularies? Do they develop at the same rate?2) What is the vocabulary learning strategy use profile of non-English majors?3) Is there any significant discrepancy between subjects proficient in L2 vocabulary4华中科

43、技大学硕士学位论文and those less proficient in L2 vocabulary as to VLS use?4) To what extent can VLS use predict learners vocabulary achievement withmotivation as a moderator variable?An Overview of the this PaperThe present paper consists of six chapters: introduction, literature review,methodology, results

44、, discussion and conclusion.Chapter one provides an introduction to the present study. It depicts the generalbackground where the study sets, the reasons to conduct the study and the overview of theentire thesis.Chapter two summarizes the literature review related to the present study. Thedefinition

45、 of some key terms about vocabulary knowledge and vocabulary learningstrategy are given, followed by a brief review of previous literature on vocabulary learningstrategies.Chapter three begins with the description of subjects and instruments for datacollection. Then there is the detailed illuminatio

46、n of the procedures for data collection anddata analysis.Chapter four reports the results for four research questions. This part mainly includesthe descriptive statistics of subjects vocabulary knowledge, their strategy use invocabulary learning, the mean differences among different dimensions of vo

47、cabularies, thecorrelations between strategy use and vocabulary achievement. The multiple regressionmodels for predicting learning vocabulary proficiency are also included.Chapter five discusses the research results reported in chapter four by comparing thefindings of the present study with those of

48、 previous works. It also provides the tentativeexplanation for the differences. Efforts are also extended to generate some patterns forChinese non-English majors vocabulary development, their strategy use profile.Chapter six serves as the conclusion. It summarizes the major findings of the wholethes

49、is and sheds light on the significance of this study. At last the limitations on samplingand data-collecting are analyzed, based on which suggestions for further research are alsoproposed.5华中科技大学硕士学位论文1 Literature Review1.1 Vocabulary KnowledgeThe development of second language (L2) vocabulary is of

50、 great importance to secondlanguage acquisition (SLA). Vocabulary is often metaphorically characterized as the“building blocks of a language”. Gass suggested that “there is good reason to believe thatthe lexicon is an important factor, if not the most important factor, in account for the bulkof seco

51、nd language data, in that the lexicon mediates language production” (2001: 373).Despite its importance, the study on L2 vocabulary has not become a focus of SLAresearch until recently. In the last two decades or so, vocabulary acquisition has movedfrom being a neglected backwater to a position of gr

52、eat importance (Meara, 2002).Literature concerning vocabulary conceptual framework, vocabulary testing andincidental/intentional vocabulary learning, is increasing by the minute. The rediscovery ofvocabulary in SLA has shed new light on the teaching and research of second language;yet, many topics i

53、n this area remain to be explored.1.1.1 What does knowing a word mean?Laufer (1998b) cautioned that research on vocabulary acquisition requires adefinition of lexical knowledge that in turn should determine what one investigates andwith which measurement instruments. However, no clear and unequivoca

54、l consensusexists as to the nature of lexical knowledge up to date. Provided the lack of universalconceptual framework, researchers and practitioners alike are puzzled as to whichframework to follow when conducting vocabulary research, assessing students vocabularysize, enhancing students vocabulary

55、 learning. During the last half century, researchershave made a number of attempts to overcome this limitation in hope of coming up with auniversal conceptual framework. Although consensus is still lacking over some centralissues, the ultimate outcome of these efforts contributed to the theoretical

56、development ofvocabulary research, enriching the overall pattern of SLA and provided guidelines forteachers to conduct classroom vocabulary learning.6华中科技大学硕士学位论文The first attempt to develop criteria for understanding what is involved in knowing aword was made by Cronbach (1942, cited in Ellis, 1994), who divided vocabularyknowledge into two main categories: knowledge of word (subdivided into generalization,breath of