Chapter One Introduction
1.1 Background of the Study
Vocabulary is the eternal topic of language. All the written languages start fromvocabulary, which builds up phrases, sentences, passages and texts. Syntactic rules arelimited and relatively regular while vocabulary is unlimited and undertakes a continuousdevelopment and change. Moreover, new words are coined to satisfy the requirements ofpeople’s ever-changing life. Truly, of all the levels of languages, vocabulary is the mostfundamental one.Vocabulary is the central task of Second Language Acquisition (SLA hereafter) and ofcritical importance to language learners, especially for second language learners. Lexicalacquisition has been traditionally regarded as the Cinderella of SLA researches. And amultitude of vocabulary studies have already been carried out in the theoretical field, andthe significance of vocabulary acquisition has been increasingly prominent. This trend,however, has been underestimated in the field of the second language（L2 hereafter）learning and teaching throughout its different stages and up to the present day (Zimmerman,1997, pp. 5-19). The central status of vocabulary within the language system is reflected inthe frequently-cited statement from Wilkins, “Without grammar, little can be conveyed;without vocabulary, nothing can be conveyed” (1972, pp.11). Native speakers canunderstand ungrammatical utterances with accurate vocabulary more than those withaccurate grammar but inaccurate vocabulary. If you learn more vocabulary and expression,you’ll make greatest advances in English study.
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1.2 Significance of the Study
Lexical knowledge is generally thought of as a good predictor of language proficiencyin a second or foreign language, and it has long been recognized that vocabulary size, inparticular, plays an important role for L2 learners’ lexical competence in English. Today, anincreasing emphasis has been laid on vocabulary in language testing, and L2 learners inChina are always required to master a certain amount of vocabulary according to theteaching syllabus, so a growing number of teachers and students spend a lot of timeteaching or learning vocabulary. In high school, students are supposed to have a commandof a vocabulary of 3500 words before they take part in the entrance examination whilecollege students are supposed to recognize at least 4500 words when they finish thetwo-year course and participate College English Test Band Four. Requirements are higherfor English majors and they should grasp approximately 8000 and 13000 words whilepreparing for TEM-4 and TEM-8. Currently in the bookshops there has been a wide rangeof vocabulary books under the effect of backwash from these tests, including a shorthandor shortcut to vocabulary and a must manual or guidebook for those who are eager to passthe required national tests.
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Chapter Two Literature Review
2.1 Concept definition
Lexical competence, the foundation of language’s comprehensive abilities, has closerelationship with language proficiency. Lexical competence stems from Hymes’scommunicative competence and Chomsky’s two famous concepts: competence andperformance. Hymes’s communicative competence means the correct and propercommunication in the special occasion. Chomsky defines competence as thespeaker-hearer’s knowledge of the language, and performance is the actual use of languagein correct situations.Currently, three versions of definition of lexical competence can be found in literature(Jiang, 2000, pp. 64-65). The simplest definition is to define the acquisition of a word asthe learner’s ability to recognize and use the word properly and efficiently incommunication. Lexical competence, in a broader sense, is considered as more than justknowing the form and sense of a word, it also means to know the association among words,the possible linguistic context and the limitations of various situations. As a matter of fact,lexical competence is still viewed as a kind of knowledge. The third definition of lexicalcompetence is to see it as skills rather than knowledge, concentrating on automaticity inlexical processing. In this point of view, vocabulary acquisition is a process of increasingautomaticity in lexical recognition and production. The automaticity-oriented definition isclosely related to L2 word recognition, which occupies a small part of lexical competenceand performance.
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2.2 Dimensions of Lexical Competence
Lexical competence implies the development of lexical knowledge and the ability touse lexical knowledge. Meara (1996a, 1996b) described the characteristics of lexicalknowledge in a macro way by introducing the concept of “dimension” instead of makingconcrete description of lexical knowledge which is centered on words. The description ofthe dimension of lexical competence dates back to Cronback (1942) who mentioned fivetypes of behavior in understanding a word: generalization, application, breadth of meaning,precision of meaning and availability (Beck & Mckeown, 1991, pp. 792). Meara putforward that lexical competence tends to develop through the vocabulary size (how manywords a learner knows), the lexical organization (how rich the word links) and the speed ofaccess (how soon a word can be retrieved). Read (1997) emphasized two aspects---thevocabulary size and the depth of lexical knowledge. Another three dimensions were addedby Schmitt & McCarthy (1997), the receptive and productive knowledge of vocabulary,autonomy of using vocabularies and mental lexicon organization. Exploring the depth ofknowledge, Schmitt & McCarthy (1997) relied only on testing the receptive knowledgeand the productive knowledge. Henriksen (1999, pp. 303-317) proposed a tri-dimensiondefinition of lexical competence: partial-precise knowledge, the depth of knowledge andthe receptive-productive dimension. Although Jiang (2000）emphasized the division ofdevelopment of lexical competence, his pattern was built on the base of vocabularyknowledge (semantic, syntax, morphological and form) and application of vocabularies(receptive and productive).
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Chapter Three Research Design......... 15
3.1 Research Questions........ 15
3.2 Research Subjects .... 15
3.3 Research Materials......... 17
3.4 Research Instruments ..... 16
Chapter Four Data Analysis and Discussion........ 18
4.1 Order of Affixes Acquisition and Characteristics Analysis........ 18
4.2 Idioms Acquisition Order and Characteristic Analysis ........ 25
Chapter Five Conclusion........ 35
5.1 Main Research Findings ...... 35
5.2 Enlightenment of Teaching ........ 36
5.3 Limitation of Research......... 37
5.4 Suggestions of Further Research...... 38
Chapter Four Data Analysis and Discussion
As the interest in L2 vocabulary has grown, an increasing awareness that lexicalcompetence is multidimensional has emerged. The development of lexical competence isdescribed with respect to some aspects that are commonly associated with four dimensions,namely, breadth of vocabulary knowledge, depth of vocabulary knowledge, lexicalprecision, and lexical automaticity. The first two items refer to the input stage of lexicalknowledge while the last two mean the output. The present study was an attempt to explorethe development of lexical competence by making research on the characteristics andregularities of affix and idiom acquisition among three groups of English majors. A prefix appears before words, whose main function is to change the meaning of thestem rather than change the part of speech. For instance, when we add un- to the wordfriendly, the meaning changes but the part of speech remains the same. Prefixes, on thebasis of meaning, can be divided into the following eight categories. 1) negative meaning,such as un-, im-, il-, ir-, and dis-; 2) opposite meaning, e.g. un-, de-; 3) the meaning of“contempt”, e.g. mis-, mal-; 4) the meaning of “degree”, e.g. super-, mini-, over-, under-; 5)the meaning of “attitude”, e.g. anti-, pro-, counter-, re-; 6) the meaning of “position”, e.g.inter-, sub-, trans-, super-, under-; 7) the meaning of “time” and “sequence”, e.g. ex-, fore-,pre-, post-, re-; 8) the meaning of “number”, e.g. semi-, hemi-, demi-, uni-, mono-, bi-, di-,tri-, multi-, poly-, centi-, and milli-.
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Conclusion
As outlined in Chapter 3, this research is intended to address the development oflexical competence of Chinese English majors through their compositions in consecutivefive semesters. The major findings are summarized with regard to the two questions we putforward in Chapter 3.2.1. In respect of prefix acquisition, the students in the second group have different orderfrom the other two groups, who use the most prefixes with 85 in total, accounting for37.61%, while the students of the third group use the least prefixes occupying 28.31%. Asthe experimental data suggest, students from each group know prefixes re- and ex- verywell, which outnumber prefixes in-, un- and pre-, but no one has ever use counter-, non-,post-, anti-, and ante- in the given period. In suffix acquisition, the three groups almostshare the same order. Students from three groups use 822, 825, 778 suffixes, accounting for33.9%, 34.02% and 32.08% respectively. Students in each group are more familiar withsuffixes –al, -ment, -ly, -ity, and –ish and –ism are never used by any student. We find thatstudents in the third group lie at the bottom in affix acquisition, which proves that the thirdgroup who had lower-grade points in the composition may be relatively poorer than theother two groups in vocabulary size. Besides, we can see that students’ suffix acquisition issignificantly higher than their prefix acquisition because suffixes appear with higherfrequency than prefixes in EFL classroom.#p#分页标题#e#
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