| Inferencing is the key ability for learners to comprehend the text meaning and construct text representations in reading comprehension.As a crucial strategy for dealing with unfamiliar words in reading,lexical inferencing is of vital importance in vocabulary development and learning.Research on lexical inferencing has made fruitful achievements,yet conclusions on the use of knowledge sources are still inconsistent.Previous studies examined the potential factors affecting lexical inferencing ability.However,their effects on inferencing time in the lexical inferencing process have not been fully explored.Hence,the present study intends to examine the effect of English proficiency on English learners’ lexical inferencing processes,comprehensively investigating the impact of English proficiency on learners’ success rates,response time,and use of knowledge sources during the inferencing process.It aims to answer the following questions:(1)What are the characteristics of English learners’ success rate,response time,and use of knowledge source types?(2)What are the effects of learners’ English proficiency on the lexical inferencing process?Specifically,the second question is composed of three sub-questions:a)What is the effect of learners’ English proficiency on the success rate of lexical inferencing?b)What is the effect of learners’ English proficiency on the response time during the lexical inferencing process?c)What is the effect of learners’ English proficiency on knowledge source types and frequency during the lexical inferencing process?A total of 49 undergraduates from the School of Mechanical Engineering and the School of Mathematics in a comprehensive university in Shandong Province participated in the study.Two expository English texts are used as stimulus materials.Data are collected from the psychological experiment program Psychopy 3.0 and online questionnaires.Quantitative data from the experiment program Psychopy 3.0 and the online questionnaire are processed and analyzed through the statistical software SPSS 26.0.Descriptive statistics,Spearman correlation analysis,independent samples t-test,and two-way chi-square test are administered for data analysis.The results are presented as follows.Firstly,high English proficiency learners report higher success rates and shorter response time;low English proficiency learners report lower success rates and longer response time;learners whether at the higher or the low proficiency level share the same pattern of knowledge source use,including both linguistic and nonlinguistic knowledge.However,the relative frequency in using knowledge source types is different in the two groups.Secondly,the effect of English proficiency on the inferencing process is different in different dimensions:English proficiency exert a significant effect on the success rate of lexical inferencing;whereas,it does not significantly affect the response time or the use of knowledge source types in inferencing processes.The present study reveals the effect of English proficiency on English learners’success rates,response time,and the use of knowledge sources during lexical inferencing processes,which is significant from both theoretical and practical perspectives.Theoretically,it provides a new perspective to study lexical inferencing processes and explore the effect of English proficiency on lexical inferencing performances.Practically,it offers some suggestions for English teachers in China to guide students in vocabulary learning and discourse reading under the current English learning environment. |
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