A Study On The Relationship Of Lexical Richness And English Learning Strategies Employed By English Majors

As one of the most important indicators of language learners’ productive competence,writing has always been a heated topic in second language acquisition field.Plenty of studies have found that lexical richness can effectively predict the quality of writings written by second language learners.Many domestic scholars in recent decades have explored the lexical richness features of Chinese EFL learners’ writings,most of which are timed-compositions.However,not many studies center on untimed writings and even fewer studies have been carried out to probe into the strategies used for acquiring lexical richness.Since the core of teaching has been shifted from teachers to learners,learner autonomy raises the interest of many educators.It is generally realized that learning strategies play an important role in the process of learners’ autonomous learning.Though a great many previous studies have focused on the relationship between learners’ use of learning strategies and language achievements,insufficient studies are carried out to examine its correlation with lexical richness features.Therefore,the present study analyzes the features of lexical richness in learners’ writings and the use of learning strategies demonstrated by English majors.Then the correlation between them is also analyzed to probe into the approaches of raising lexical richness.The subjects in the present study were 42 sophomore English majors coming from a university in southwest China and the writing samples were 120 untimed argumentative compositions.The lexical richness theoretical frameworks adopted in the study are put forward by Laufer & Nation(1995),Engber(1995)and Read(2000).This study explored the lexical richness features of untimed argumentative essays written by Chinese English majors from three dimensions,namely lexical variation,lexical density and lexical sophistication and these features were compared with those of English native speakers.Meanwhile,the Strategy Inventory for Language Learning(SILL)designed by Oxford(1990)was employed to investigate the use of learning strategies of English majors.Finally,SPSS 23 was adopted to analyze the correlation between lexical richness and the use of learning strategies.The research results of the study are listed as follows:(1)The mean values of lexical variation,lexical density and lexical sophistication demonstrated in sophomore English majors’ writings are 19.85(SD=1.79),0.55(SD=0.02),0.21(SD=0.04)respectively.Compared with native speakers’ writings,no significant difference(p=0.15>0.05)exists in the lexical variation variable between Chinese students’ writings(19.95)and native speakers’ writings(19.24).The lexical density value demonstrated in Chinese learners’ writings(0.55)is significantly higher than that of native speakers(0.53)(p=0.00<0.05),while the lexical sophistication value in writings of Chinese students(0.21)is significantly lower than that of native speakers(0.28)(p=0.00<0.05).(2)English majors’ use frequency of all the six learning strategies has reached a medium level.The most frequently used learning strategies are cognitive strategies(M=3.43,SD=0.47)and compensation strategies(M=3.42,SD=0.59).Memory strategies are the least preferred learning strategies(M=2.99,SD=0.42).(3)No significant correlation is shown between the use of English learning strategies and lexical density as well as lexical sophistication.Besides,the value of lexical variation does significantly negatively correlated with the use of memory strategies(r=-0.42,p=0.02<0.05),cognitive strategies(r=-0.38,p=0.04<0.05),affective strategies(r=-0.5,p=0.01<0.05)and social strategies(r=-0.46,p=0.01<0.05).Such problems could stem from failure in understanding lexical richness and inappropriate production of English written language.Based on the above research findings,this study proposes some pedagogical suggestions.Firstly,teachers should introduce the concept of lexical richness to students.Secondly,teachers should encourage students to use more derived forms,synonyms,sophisticated words(words beyond basic 2,000 word families)and lexical words in the process of writing.Thirdly,teachers should instruct students to tell receptive vocabulary from productive vocabulary,and encourage students to make sentences with the words learnt.Fourthly,owning to the close correlation between lexis and grammar,teachers should encourage students to make more use of reduced structures to avoid the problem of lexical density being undesirably too great.ALL in all,as for advanced language learners like English majors,the use of English learning strategies should be adopted with an awareness of lexical richness and differences of receptive vocabulary and productive vocabulary.