The Effects Of Listener-Internal Variables On L2 Listening Comprehension

Second language listening is not only important in communication but also in language acquisition, but what is actually going on inside the brain of a second language learner during the listening comprehension process remains unclear. Previous studies have provided insights into factors that influence L2 listening. The results, however, are not always consistent. Some of the findings are based only on logical grounds and lack empirical evidence. Of those empirical studies, the ways to measure listening comprehension are different, and this makes it difficult to compare the results. One important problem is that the interactions of factors are often neglected, since most of the studies only examine one or two factors. Therefore, studies that examine a cluster of factors to account for potential interaction of these factors have been called for in this field.This dissertation reported a study that used a structural equation modeling approach to investigate the integrated and systematic effects of some listener-internal factors on second language listening comprehension. To be specific, the study tried to answer whether there are direct or indirect relationships between listener-internal factors and L2 listening comprehension. These factors include L2 lexical competence, L2 grammatical competence, L2 discourse competence, L2 lexical segmentation ability, L2 pragmatic competence, strategic competence, topical knowledge and phonological memory.Two hundred and seventy six Chinese tertiary level university students took part in the tests, questionnaire surveys and completed several listening comprehension tasks. The data were used to test a hypothetical model derived from an extensive literature review. The study yielded the following findings:1. L2 competence affects L2 listening comprehension.1) L2 lexical competence has both direct and indirect effects on L2 listening comprehension. The direct influence is strong, but the indirect influence via L2 discourse competence is rather weak. Put together, they can explain nearly 71% of the variance of L2 listening comprehension. As the most influential variable, L2 lexical competence is the core competence among all that influence listening comprehension.2) L2 grammatical competence exerts both direct and indirect effects on L2 listening comprehension. The direct influence is significant but rather weak. L2 Grammatical competence has indirect influences on L2 listening comprehension via L2 lexical segmentation ability and then mainly via L2 lexical competence (the first path). It also exerts effects on L2 listening comprehension via L2 discourse competence (the second path). The first path is more influential than the second. Grammatical rules can help learners to identify words from sound streams, and therefore influence listening comprehension.3) L2 discourse competence only has a significant but rather weak direct effect on L2 listening comprehension. It can be inferred that a better understanding of the structure of spoken text can facilitate the comprehension of the whole text.4) The lexical segmentation ability has an indirect effect on L2 listening comprehension mainly via L2 lexical competence. It can be inferred that second language listeners with a high lexical segmentation ability tend to find it easier to recognize words in continuous sound streams and thus achieve better performance in listening comprehension.5) L2 pragmacognitive competence, one dimension of L2 pragmatic competence, has a weak but significant correlation with L2 listening comprehension.6) Three language competence variables, i.e., L2 lexical competence, L2 grammatical competence and L2 discourse competence, can jointly account for 81% of the variance in L2 listening comprehension. That is,81% of the variances in L2 listening comprehension can be explained by the combined differences of L2 lexical competence, L2 grammatical competence, and L2 discourse competence2. The overall use of metacognitive strategies does not have significant influence on L2 listening comprehension, no matter when it is considered separately or together with other listener-internal variables within one framework. This result suggests that the frequency of using the metacognitive strategies does not have a significant contribution to L2 listening comprehension. Good listening outcome may lie in the quality rather than the quantity of metacognitve strategy use.3. Topical knowledge can facilitate the comprehension of spoken language to a certain degree, but its influence is rather limited when considered together with other variables within one framework.4. Phonological memory exerts indirect effects on L2 listening comprehension via L2 lexical segmentation ability, and then mainly via L2 lexical competence. In other words, learners with better phonological memory tend to keep the short-term memory traces longer and have more time to further process the incoming stimuli, so good phonological memory leads to a better lexical segmentation ability and better lexical competence, thus facilitating the understanding of spoken language.The study has theoretical, methodological and pedagogical implications. The findings show that tertiary-level L2 learners in China largely depend more on bottom-up processing for listening comprehension than on top-down processing. It is suggested that listening comprehension teachers and students should pay close attention to the improvement of bottom-up skills, while not neglecting the improvement of top-down skills.