英语专业本科生开题报告样本

倍

行

距

reading

is

commonly

acknowledged

by

both

teachers

and

learners

in

the

process

of

learning and teaching, so the topic of lexical inference strategies is of practical interest

to both teachers, who would like to employ pedagogical techniques which can reinforce

and develop students

’

achievements in EFL reading to better their effects of instruction,

and

learners

themselves,

who

once

master

those

strategies,

are

in

a

better

position

to

infer

unknown

word

meanings

in

the

process

of

reading.

Learners

can

sometimes

deliberately apply those strategies to solve problems they encounter in reading in order

to

conquer

the

inherently

difficult

task

of

learning

a

foreign

language.

This

indicates

that lexical inference ability and inferring strategies are paramount in EFL reading. As

to

the

relationships

among

gender,

majors,

foreign

language

proficiency,

lexical

inference ability and inferring strategies respectively, they are also of practical interest

to

both

language

teachers,

who

can

utilize

different

methods

to

instruct

students

of

different gender and majors according to their different foreign language proficiency so

as to facilitate both their teaching effects and students

’

understanding and researchers,

who can investigate what factors ascribe to the differentiations and why, so as to make

full use of advantages and avoid disadvantages to orient language teaching and learning

in the long run. To understand lexical inference and strategies, we have to refer to the

该部分根据自己的具体题目需

可有可无，

如论文中有新的、

生僻的或者重要的名词，则需要

有该部分对这些名词加以解释

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definitions of inference, lexical inference, LIA and LS first

.

1.2 Definitions of Inference and Lexical Inference

Inference

refers

to

the

process,

in

language

learning,

of

arriving

at

a

hypothesis,

idea,

or

judgment

on

the

basis

of

other

knowledge,

ideas,

or

judgments,

that

is,

the

process

of

making

inference

or

inferring

(Richards

&

Platt

and

Platt,

2000:222).

In

language learning, inference has been discussed as a learning strategy used by learners,

especially in reading, to work out grammatical and other kinds of rules (Carton, 1971).

According

to

W.

Grabe

and

r

(2005:260),

inference

refers

to

the

process

of

drawing

a

logical

conclusion

based

on

explicit

information

in

text

and

background

knowledge. The mental activity/process involved when readers encounter unknown or

unfamiliar words or phrases (hereafter for the sake of convenience we use unknown or

unfamiliar

words

to

refer

to

both

unknown

and

unfamiliar

words

and

phrases)

and

thereby assign meanings to them in the process of reading is termed

“

lexical inference

or inferring (Barnett, 1990:79). Thus in this study we adopt the term lexical inference in

the

sense

that

readers

are

aware

of

encountering

unknown

or

unfamiliar

words

or

phrases,

in

the

reading

process,

and

make

deliberate

attempts

to

figure

out

their

meanings and draw a logical conclusion based on the logical reasoning of the explicit

information

in

a

text

and

background

knowledge.

It

is

a

deliberate

and

conscious

process of deriving meanings from co-text in reading process.

已有研究及其不足。

该部分很重要，

它 是你的研究存在的前提。因为已

有研究有不足之处，才有必要做现

在的研究。

1.3 Previous Studies and Their Deficiencies

Previous researches on word meanings in context has concentrated more on other

foreign or second language reading strategies than on lexical inference strategies. Some

theorists

focus

on

receptive

acquisition

of

vocabulary

and

recommend

that

students

learn

lexical

inference

techniques

in

order

to

enlarge

their

vocabularies

(Bramski,

D

&Williams,

1984;

Crow,

1986).

For

researchers

investigating

the

categorizations

of

lexical

inference

strategies,

results

tend

to

be

in

two

directions

(1)

towards

a

categorization

of

contextual

clues

students

use

or

might

use

(Bramski,

D

&Williams

1984;

Siebert,

1945,

quoted

from

Barnett,

1990),

and

(2)

towards

an

explanation

of

precisely

how

students

discover

meanings

of

unfamiliar

words,

that

is

the

process

of

lexical

inferring

in

test-taking.

Studies

on

developing

and

investigating

learners

’

learning and reading strategies conducted by both language teachers and researchers are

2

abundant in the last two decades (Oxford, 1990; O

’

Malley

&

Chamot, 1990;

程晓堂

,

郑

敏

,2002;

文秋芳

,1996;

肖建壮

,1997), but only few of which focus their attention on

lexical inference in reading. Available studies are those which view this issue from the

perspective

of

reading

strategies

and

concentrate

on

the

process

of

lexical

inferring

(Bensoussan,

M,

&

Laufer,

1984;

Haynes,1984),

aiming

to

explore

how

learners

react

when they encounter unknown or unfamiliar words in reading process. Researches into

the categorization of lexical inference strategies are plentiful and abundant in the recent

years

(Adams,1982;

Clarke

and

Nation,1980;

王瑛

,

2006).

Some

attempt

to

validate

the

effectiveness

of

lexical

inference

strategy

training

at

tertiary

level

(

王萍

,2004),

hoping to justify the effectiveness of lexical inference strategies training; some home in

on the factors affecting lexical inference and their constraints (Palmberg,1987;

任绍曾

,

2003;

赵福利

,2002

).

A

few

studies

concerned

with

relational

investigation,

for

instance, study into the impact of language proficiency on lexical inference ability (

刘

津

开

,1999),

study

into

influence

of

depth

of

vocabulary

knowledge

on

lexical

inferential success (

寻阳

,

孙丽

,2006).

研究的意义，必要性重要性等等，

该部分很重要。

1.4 Significance of This Study

Based

on

the

previous

studies,

this

study

goes

a

step

further

and

attempts

to

investigate the influence of gender, major and language proficiency in a narrow sense,

i.e.

at

tertiary

level,

on

the

lexical

strategy

use

and

inferential

success

based

on

the

previous

categorization

of

various

lexical

inference

strategies.

Answers

to

these

questions are of great importance to both the

pedagogy and language research, which

can

shed

light

on

and

guide

the

teaching

and

learning

and

make

the

processes

more

fulfilling and easier. These answers can also help practitioners to find some respective

methods to combine the two processes together and make them harmonious in the long

run.

研< /p>

究

目

的

与

要

回

答的具体问题。该

部

分

是

开

题

考

察

的核心部分

2. Purpose of This Study and Research Questions

The goal of this study is to investigate the influence of Language Proficiency (LP),

Gender (G), and Majors (M) on Lexical Inference Ability (LIA) and learners

’

Lexical

Inference Strategy Use (LISU), that is to say, whether learners of different majors and

gender

with

different

language

proficiency

perform

differentially

in

test

in

terms

of

3