Development of the vocabulary knowledge and use of Chinese tertiary learners

Abstract

This thesis explores the development of vocabulary knowledge and use for Chinese tertiary learners. It addresses three main questions. First, it explores the relationship between vocabulary knowledge (knowledge of collocations) and the quality of lexical use in writing. The results indicate a weak correlation between the vocabulary knowledge and use. This part also examines the contribution of the communicative use of language to the quality of lexical use in writing. The correlation analysis indicates that there is a weak correlation between the communicative use of language and the quality of lexical use. The findings raise the needs to investigate the use of collocations in writing. The second question examines the extent to which learners use collocations in their writing at different levels of study. It also explores the learning sources of the collocations in learner writing and learners' confidence in collocational use. Results suggest that learners show similar patterns in their use of collocations regardless of the level of their study. The findings indicate that learners lack the awareness of collocations with high associate strength, and the resources that could contribute to learner's collocational use are quite limited. The third question intends to address the issues in the learning of collocations. It investigates the efficiency of collocations in new item learning. At the same time, it examines the intralexical factors, i.e., association strength and collocate-node relationship, in the acquisition of collocations. Results provide empirical evidence to support the advantage of collocations in new item learning. It also suggests that association strength in conducive to collocational learning. Although the findings show that collocate-node relationship affects the retention of collocations, this effect could be neutralized by explicit teaching of collocations.