Relating Lexical and Syntactic Knowledge to Academic English Listening: The Importance of Construct Representation

Abstract

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 (r = 0.77 and r = 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.

Explaining listening comprehension among L2 learners of English: The contribution of vocabulary and grammar knowledge

“…However, these results do not support the findings of Mecartty (2000), Andringa et al (2012), Vafaee and Suzuki (2019) and Cai (2020), regarding the importance of grammar knowledge for L2 listening comprehension compared with the importance of vocabulary knowledge. The current study shows that both the scores of vocabulary test and the grammar test correlated significantly with L2 LC scores (r = .65 and r = .74, respectively).…”

“…Meanwhile, Cai (2020) explored the correlation between lexical and syntactic knowledge with L2 LC and the unique contribution made by these two types of knowledge. The study recruited 258 Chinese learners of academic English and made use of a retired IELTS listening test to measure participants' L2 listening proficiency.…”

“…Listening comprehension (LC) is a complicated process as it is based on both listeners' linguistic and non-linguistic knowledge (Buck, 2001). Recently, an increasing number of studies have been conducted into the relationship between second language (L2) learner individual differences and their LC (e.g., Andringa, Olsthoorn, van Beuningen, Schoonen, & Hulstjin, 2012;Cai, 2020;Leonard, 2019;Masrai, 2019aMasrai, , 2019bMatthews & Cheng, 2015;Vandergrift & Baker, 2015;Wang & Treffers-Daller, 2017). Andringa et al (2012) explored the following determinants of success in native (NS) and non-native speakers' (NNS) LC: linguistic knowledge, cognitive ability, processing speed, and working memory.…”

“…Following this, Leonard (2019) explored the correlation between L2 learners' decoding ability and LC and Vafaee and Suzuki (2019) investigated the concurrent roles of linguistics, cognitive, and affective variables in L2 listening. Finally, Wallace (2020) examined the role of knowledge, metacognitive awareness, memory, and attention in L2 LC, and Cai (2020) explored the relative importance of lexical and syntactic knowledge in the area. Most of this extant literature focused either on only one source of learners' linguistic knowledge or did not examine the relative significance of different sources.…”

Assessing Second Language Listening Over the Past Twenty Years: A Review Within the Socio-Cognitive Framework

“…The relative importance of lexical and syntactic knowledge in L2 listening test was investigated. It was found that both lexical and syntactic resources played an important role in successful L2 listening, and the role of lexical resources was more important than that of syntactic resources (Cai, 2020;Vafaee and Suzuki, 2020). Furthermore, empirical evidence showed that vocabulary knowledge is a strong predictor of L2 listening performance (Andringa et al, 2012;Matthews and Cheng, 2015;Wang and Treffers-Daller, 2017).…”