Cai Hongwen
Center for Linguistics and Applied Linguistics, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, Guangzhou, China.
Front Psychol. 2020 Mar 31;11:494. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00494. eCollection 2020.
This study aims to resolve contradictory conclusions on the relative importance of lexical and syntactic knowledge in second language (L2) listening with evidence from academic English. It was hypothesized that when lexical and syntactic knowledge is measured in auditory receptive tasks contextualized in natural discourse, the measures will be more relevant to L2 listening, so that both lexical and syntactic knowledge will have unique contributions to L2 listening. To test this hypothesis, a quantitative study was designed, in which lexical and syntactic knowledge was measured via partial dictation, an auditory receptive task contextualized in a discourse context. Academic English listening was measured via a retired IELTS listening test. A group of 258 college-level native Chinese learners of English completed these tasks. Pearson correlations showed that both lexical and syntactic measures correlated strongly with English listening ( = 0.77 and = 0.67 respectively). Hierarchical regression analyses showed that both measures jointly explained 62% of the variance in the listening score and that each measure had its unique contribution. These results demonstrated the importance of considering construct representation substantially and using measures that well reflect constructs in practical research.
本研究旨在借助学术英语的证据，解决关于词汇和句法知识在第二语言（L2）听力中相对重要性的矛盾结论。研究假设，当在自然语篇语境化的听觉接受任务中测量词汇和句法知识时，这些测量将与L2听力更相关，从而词汇和句法知识都将对L2听力有独特贡献。为验证这一假设，设计了一项定量研究，其中通过部分听写来测量词汇和句法知识，部分听写是一种在语篇语境中进行的听觉接受任务。通过一份退役的雅思听力测试来测量学术英语听力。一组258名大学水平的中国英语学习者完成了这些任务。皮尔逊相关性分析表明，词汇和句法测量都与英语听力密切相关（分别为 = 0.77和 = 0.67）。层次回归分析表明，这两项测量共同解释了听力分数中62%的方差，且每项测量都有其独特贡献。这些结果证明了在实际研究中充分考虑构念表征并使用能很好反映构念的测量方法的重要性。
