Lexical ability in L2 Chinese reading comprehension: path analysis comparing higher- and lower-proficiency learners

ABSTRACT

Lexical ability, an umbrella term to cover various knowledge and skills pertaining to words in print, is a key component in reading comprehension. Little is known how different facets of lexical ability jointly contribute to L2 reading comprehension and how the contributions may differ between higher- and lower-proficiency L2 learners. This study, based on 201 adults who had studied Chinese in China, explored direct and indirect effects of distinct facets of lexical ability on L2 reading comprehension. The participants completed three paper-pencil tasks that measured three facets of lexical ability, that is, morphological awareness, character knowledge, and vocabulary knowledge. Their short-term memory, grammatical knowledge, and reading comprehension were also measured. Separate sets of path analysis showed that higher- and lower-proficiency learners had distinct patterns of relationships. Whereas higher-proficiency learners relied more on morphological awareness and vocabulary knowledge in L2 Chinese reading comprehension, lower-proficiency learners drew largely upon their character knowledge.

KEYWORDS:

• Reading comprehension
• lexical ability
• morphological awareness
• character knowledge
• vocabulary knowledge
• L2 Chinese

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by National Social Science Foundation of China [grant number 22BYY162]; The International Society for Chinese Language Teaching [grant number SH22Y01].

Notes on contributors

Tianxu Chen

Tianxu Chen, a Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University, is an associate professor at Minzu University of China. His research interest is L2 reading, vocabulary learning, and teaching Chinese as a second language. His recent publications have appeared in Reading and Writing, Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, Foreign Language Annals and so on.

Dongbo Zhang

Dongbo Zhang, a Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University, is a professor at University of Exeter. His research interest is L2 reading and vocabulary learning. His recent publications have appeared in Applied Linguistics, The Modern Language Journal, Reading Research Quarterly and so on.