The Relative Contribution of Vocabulary Knowledge and Syntactic Knowledge to L2 Reading Comprehension

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate: 1) the relationship between L2 vocabulary/ L2 syntactic knowledge and L2 reading comprehension and 2) the relative role of vocabulary and syntactic knowledge in L2 reading comprehension. L2 reading comprehension was examined as literal, inferential, and evaluative comprehension as well as general reading comprehension. For this study, 47 Korean software high school EFL learners were administered a vocabulary knowledge test, a syntactic knowledge test, and a reading comprehension test. Results revealed that vocabulary as well as syntactic knowledge significantly correlated to general reading comprehension; however, vocabulary knowledge was correlated to literal and inferential comprehension, and syntactic knowledge to inferential and evaluative comprehension. For vocabulary knowledge, all of the frequency bands except 2K and 4K word families of the Vocabulary Size Test (VST) (Nation & Beglar, 2007) significantly correlated to general reading comprehension and inferential comprehension; however, low-frequency vocabulary showed the connection with literal comprehension, and high-frequency vocabulary with evaluative comprehension. Additionally, only syntactic knowledge played a crucial role in general reading comprehension and inferential comprehension, after controlling for other variables. Vocabulary knowledge was not found to be a significant predictor of reading comprehension. The findings imply the need for teaching syntactic knowledge as well as a broad range of vocabulary, in a Korean EFL reading comprehension class.