THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN EFL LEARNERS' DEPTH OF VOCABULARY KNOWLEDGE AND ORAL COLLOCATIONAL ERRORS

• Main Authors: Hung-chun Wang, 王宏均
• Other Authors: Professor Su-chin Shih
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2006
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/16683921147194218475

碩士 === 國立高雄師範大學 === 英語學系 === 94 === The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between EFL learners’ depth of vocabulary knowledge and oral collocational errors. The connections between depth of vocabulary knowledge and the inaccuracy rates of oral lexical collocations, and the types of errors were targeted. In addition, this study examined the effects of different oral elicitation tasks and EFL learners’ language use for inner speech on the inaccuracy rates of collocations in speaking. It also performed a qualitative analysis of the lexical collocational errors and their problem sources. The subjects were 75 seniors from the English department at National Kaohsiung Normal University. All the subjects were required to take the modified in-depth vocabulary knowledge measure, three oral elicitation tasks, and a questionnaire. Based on the subjects’ performance on the in-depth vocabulary knowledge measure, the subjects were divided into three groups of different proficiency levels: (a) the high-proficiency group, (b) the intermediate-proficiency group, and (c) the low-proficiency group. Only the data collected from the high-proficiency and the low-proficiency groups were analyzed and compared in this study. On the other hand, the researcher analyzed the data collected from the oral elicitation tasks and the questionnaire. Statistical measures and qualitative analyses were employed to investigate the connections between depth of vocabulary knowledge, lexical collocational errors, oral elicitation tasks, and language use for inner speech. The major findings of this study are summarized as follows: 1. The high-proficiency learners had a lower inaccuracy rate of lexical collocations in speaking than the low-proficiency learners. However, the difference between these two groups was insignificant. 2. Of the six collocational patterns discussed in this study, the high-proficiency learners had the highest inaccuracy rate in L5 (ad. + adv.; adv. + adj.) pattern. The low-proficiency learners had the highest inaccuracy rate in L4 (noun1 of noun2). However, the statistical results displayed that the between-group differences in these six collocational patterns did not reach the significance level. 3. As for the problem sources of lexical collocations in speaking, 260 of the 263 errors found in the learner corpus were attributable to the problem sources discussed in this study. They are transliteration, coinage, approximation, overgeneralization, use of synonyms, ignorance of rule restrictions, use of de-lexicalized verbs, and verbification. No errors were derived from language switch from Chinese. The causes of 3 lexical collocations could not readily be categorized in this study. Besides, it was found that the EFL learners in this study resorted to the L2-based strategies more often than the L1-based strategies. Approximation as a strategy resulted in the most lexical collocational errors in the learner corpus. 4. As for the effect of oral elicitation tasks, the EFL learners had a higher inaccuracy rate of lexical collocations in the prepared speech than in the single-picture-cued storytelling and in the nine-picture-cued storytelling. However, the task effects on the inaccuracy rates of lexical collocations in speaking were insignificant. 5. The EFL learners’ language use for inner speech was significantly related to the inaccuracy rates of lexical collocations in speaking. The learners who mainly thought in Chinese mingled with English had a lower inaccuracy rate than those who primarily used either Chinese or English for inner speech. To sum up, it is suggested that language teachers teach different features of words in vocabulary instruction. This will enhance EFL learners’ depth of vocabulary knowledge and reduce their lexical collocational errors in speaking. The findings of this study also pointed out teachers should draw attention to learners’ metacognitive mechanisms in language teaching and learning.