The process of reading consists of the interaction of many subcomponent processes that transpire between perception of the letters on the page and the building of an interpretation of the text. Essential to comprehension is the ability to access the context-specific meanings of words. Thus, one line of second language (L2) reading research has examined the relationship between the percentage of known words in a text (i.e., lexical coverage) and reading comprehension. Overall, studies in this vein have found that if second language readers report knowing 95-98% of the words in a text, their comprehension is nearly the same as it would be if they knew 100% of the words (e.g., Hu & Nation; 2000; Schmitt, Jiang, & Grabe, 2011). This lexical coverage figure is recommended for extensive reading, but the reading conditions of the existing studies may not be generalizable to this type of reading, nor has the vocabulary-comprehension relationship been studied with beginner L2 language learners. Moreover, comprehension is not a unitary construct. Theories of comprehension posit multiple levels of representation (Kintsch & van Dijk, 1978; Kintsch & Kintsch, 2005). Therefore, this thesis reports on a study (N = 44) that looked at how lexical coverage relates to the construction of a literal representation of the text (i.e., textbase) and the reader’s mental model of the situation (i.e., situation model). Because a primary purpose of extensive reading being enjoyment, this study also investigated how lexical coverage and comprehension relate to the enjoyment experienced by beginning L2 Spanish learners when reading under conditions more like those desired for extensive reading (Day and Bamford, 2002). In this study, a yes/no vocabulary test was used to measure knowledge of all the words in the texts. Comprehension was first measured productively by means of a cued written recall (CWR), followed by a multiple-choice question (MCQ) test. Both comprehension measures focused on the ten main events identified by four advanced Spanish speakers, and for each main event there was a literal and an inferential question. The results demonstrated a moderate to strong relationship between lexical coverage and comprehension. Participants with 90-94% lexical coverage outperformed the 85-89% lexical coverage group on all measures of comprehension. However, there was a lot of variation in comprehension among readers with 90-94% lexical coverage and they, on average, only comprehended half of the main events. In general, inferential questions were of equal or greater difficulty than literal questions. There was a small to medium effect for the relationship between enjoyment and overall CWR test scores, as well as between enjoyment and perceived comprehension. The significance of these findings for textbase and situation model construction, as well as pedagogical implications are discussed. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts. / Spring Semester 2019. / April 19, 2019. / extensive reading, lexical coverage, reading comprehension, second language acquisition, vocabulary / Includes bibliographical references. / Michael J. Leeser, Professor Directing Thesis; Antje Muntendam, Committee Member; Gretchen Sunderman, Committee Member.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_709766 |
| Contributors | Herman, Eric Donald (author), Leeser, Michael J. (Professor Directing Thesis), Muntendam, Antje (Committee Member), Sunderman, Gretchen L. (Committee Member), Florida State University (degree granting institution), College of Arts and Sciences (degree granting college), Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics (degree granting departmentdgg) |
| Publisher | Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, text, master thesis |
| Format | 1 online resource (125 pages), computer, application/pdf |
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