Abstract:
Two main features of vocabulary knowledge, namely breadth and depth, have afundamental role in vocabulary research. This research aimed to study the relationship between vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension, and to investigate which feature of vocabulary knowledge, breadth or depth, had better impact on identifying reading comprehension performance. Therefore, three language tests were used, including a reading comprehension test, Vocabulary Levels Test, and Word Associates Test. 64 students majoring in Medicine at Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran, participated in the study. The outcomes of the two-tailed Pearson Correlations and multiple regression analyses declared that test results on vocabulary breadth, depth of vocabulary knowledge, and reading comprehension were positively correlated and breadth and depth of vocabulary knowledge were closely interrelated.
Machine summary:
"Breadth or Depth: The Role of Vocabulary Knowledge in Iranian EAP Students’ Reading Comprehension Performance Esmail Faghih¹ , Faezeh Nemati* ² 1 , 2.
Reviewing L2 vocabulary learning, Nation (1982) detects that the aspects which affect the difficulty or complexity of lexical items are pronouncability, part of speech, similarity to L1 words, the learner‟s proficiency level, and the kind of test used to study the learners' vocabulary knowledge.
There has also been an extensive study on the need for EAP courses, which make reference to the insufficiency of vocabulary knowledge among undergraduate students in Hong Kong‟s largest English-Medium university (Evans & Green, 2007).
Nation (2001) noted that breadth or size of vocabulary knowledge is the number of words that language learners recognize.
In another study, Nurweni and Read (1999) noted that the correlation between the scores on the tests of breadth and depth of vocabulary knowledge was .
Later, Qian (2002) organized a similar study with 217 participants from 19 different L1 backgrounds and gained the same consequences, supporting the significance of the role of both depth and breadth of vocabulary knowledge in reading comprehension.
The general aim of this study was to discover the role of vocabulary knowledge in Iranian EAP university students‟ reading performance.
Depth of vocabulary knowledge was measured by Word Associates Test (WAT) which was originally developed by Read (1993, 2000).
The Role of Vocabulary Knowledge in Iranian EFL Students‟ Reading Comprehension Performance: Breadth or Depth?
Breadth and Depth of Vocabulary Knowledge: Which Really Matters in the Academic Reading Performance of Chinese University Students?"
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