英语专业论文-2017年10月.doc

Abstract L2 second language vocabulary acquisition, as an important component in second language acquisition, has called scholars’ increasing attention. In resent years, studies mainly focus on various dimensions of an individual word (depth of vocabulary knowledge), which failed to receive due attention in the past. The present study, based on Qian (1999)’s framework of vocabulary knowledge, attempts to investigate the relationship between breadth and depth of vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension in ESL for junior high school students. In the study, 72 second-year junior high school students are considered as participants of the study. They were required to do two tests to measure their vocabulary size and depth of vocabulary knowledge respectively. Their scores of reading comprehension in the past week were also documented for the representation of their reading proficiency. Within one week’s data collection, the raw data were analyzed with Pearson correlation and multiple regression as dominant statistical techniques. After that, the analyses were conducted with SPSS 13.0 with further discussion made and conclusion drawn. The result of the study showed that the correlation among the scores of the three tests were highly and positively associated and especially scores on depth of vocabulary knowledge made a notable contribution to the prediction of reading comprehension. Based on the empirical evidence, conclusion could be drawn that reading proficiency is affected more by depth of vocabulary knowledge than by vocabulary size and the two dimensions of vocabulary knowledge are strongly associated. This indicates that vocabulary acquisition is more than mere memorization of a word’s form and meaning, but rather, it is a complex process of comprehending all aspects of vocabulary knowledge. This study is instructive to vocabulary acquisition in the way that it lays a empirical foundation for learner’s recognition of importance of improving depth of vocabula