A Study On The Correlation Between Vocabulary Knowledge Framework And College Students’ English Reading Comprehension Performance

A lot of researches on the relationship between vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehensions have been conducted in second language acquisition home and abroad.However,vocabulary knowledge is complex and multi-dimensional,and the impact and causes of each dimension of vocabulary knowledge on reading comprehension is still unclear.This study focused on Qian’s vocabulary knowledge framework,including four dimensions: vocabulary size,depth of vocabulary knowledge,lexical organization,also called mental lexicon,and vocabulary fluency in context.This thesis used think-aloud protocols,interviews and a series of language tests for qualitative and quantitative analyses to explore the characteristics of college students’ Vocabulary Knowledge Framework in English reading comprehension,the correlation between Vocabulary Knowledge Framework and their English reading comprehension performance and to study the reasons for the problems of students’ English vocabulary knowledge framework.The research results show that: Firstly,the characteristics of college students’ vocabulary knowledge framework in English reading comprehension are:(1)The main problems in vocabulary size are not knowing the meaning of words in reading,forgetting the learnt words before through analysis of think-loud discourse.And there are five problems in depth of vocabulary knowledge: pronunciation,recognition of syntactic features of words,collocation,polysemy and confusion of word with similar characters.In addition,fluency in vocabulary use reflects the accurate recognition and speed in text reading.The subjects could not find the key words in the sentences,and could not find the topic sentences in the paragraphs,which caused difficulties in understanding.(2)College students’ mastery of vocabulary is better than their mastery of depth of vocabulary knowledge,and the difference between individuals in the mastery of vocabulary knowledge depth is less than the mastery of vocabulary size.Secondly,the relationship between vocabulary knowledge framework and college students’ English reading comprehension performance is as follows:(1)Vocabulary size,depth of vocabulary knowledge and vocabulary fluency are all related to the reading error rate.(2)Vocabulary size,depth of vocabulary knowledge and aural vocabulary knowledge test were positively correlated with reading comprehension performance.Among them,the correlation between vocabulary size and reading comprehension performance is the highest,followed by the correlation between depth of vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension performance,and the correlation between aural vocabulary knowledge test and reading comprehension performance is the lowest.Thirdly,college students’ English vocabulary knowledge framework is incomplete,and there are many problems.The reasons are as follows: Firstly,students in the interview reported they did not pay attention to the depth of vocabulary knowledge,but only learned one aspect or several aspects of vocabulary,without combining all aspects of the depth of vocabulary knowledge.Secondly,students review irregularly,their knowledge aren’t stored in the long-term memory and does not enter the mental lexicon,and lexical organization,that is,the structure of the mental lexicon,is unreasonable.Finally,students have mastered certain vocabulary knowledge but lack of reading comprehension training,which seriously affects the rapid and accurate recognition of vocabulary in reading texts,that is,they cannot achieve fluency in reading comprehension.There are many factors that affect reading comprehension performance.This study discusses reading comprehension from the basic vocabulary knowledge framework.The research results are instructive to English teachers and learners in practice.