The relationship between breadth and depth of vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension

Abstract

The aim of this study is to investigate the role played by learners' vocabulary knowledge in their reading comprehension performance. It intends to determine whether the breadth and depth of vocabulary knowledge are related to EFL learners' reading comprehension, and to investigate which one of these variables, that is, depth or breadth of vocabulary knowledge, makes a more important contribution to reading comprehension. Finally, it attempts to investigate whether there is a relationship between these two dimensions of vocabulary knowledge. The participants of the study were 58 EFL Iranian students of Intensive English Course (IEC) in UTM based on purposive non-random sampling. To collect data, three tests were administered to the students during their class time to measure the students’ breadth and depth of vocabulary knowledge along with their reading comprehension ability. The results obtained from the analysis of the data indicated that while both breadth and depth of vocabulary knowledge play an important role in EFL learners' reading comprehension performance, depth of vocabulary knowledge makes a more important contribution. The results further revealed that depth and breadth of vocabulary knowledge are positively correlated, that is, those learners who had large vocabulary size tend to have a deeper knowledge of the words, too.