Word-Guessing Ability in English Reading Comprehen

Sino-US English Teaching, ISSN 1539-8072

December 2014, Vol. 11, No. 12, 912-917

DAVID PUBLISHING

Word-Guessing Ability in English Reading Comprehension of

Non-English Major Students in Private University

SHAN Chun-xin

Ningbo Dahongying University, Ningbo, China

In order to provide English as a foreign language students with effective English language learning approaches, this

investigation is focused on how students deal with words when they are doing reading material. It is found that

most students can use some skills to guess the unknown words in reading materials, such as explanatory analysis

skills, syntactic analysis skills, and structural analysis skills, while they have overlooked how these words are

organized metaphorically and metonymically. This investigation will provide students with the target language

knowledge metaphors and metonymy, examining the impact on computer vocabulary guessing and reading

comprehension through teaching the concept of metaphor and metonymy. In this research, the new word-guessing

skill based on the knowledge of metaphor and metonymy was applied to word-guessing teaching in reading

comprehension of computer material. The research question is studied in this experiment: Can the training of using

ways of word-guessing base on the knowledge of metonymy and metaphor promote students’ ability of word

All Rights ng in reading comprehension of computer material? The results show that students have gradually paid

attention to the word-guessing skill in reading process. The skills based on the knowledge of metaphor and

metonymy have helped students get the right meaning of the unknown words in computer reading materials. It has

really enlarged students’ vocabulary and improved their confidence in finishing reading.

Keywords: reading comprehension, word-guessing, metaphor, metonymy

Introduction

This paper is an analysis of a research on students’ ability of guessing words in reading comprehension. In

this research, the new word-guessing skill based on the knowledge of metaphor and metonymy was applied to

word-guessing teaching in reading comprehension of computer material. The research question is studied in the

experiment of two calsses as control and experimetal class. The results show that students have gradually paid

attention to the word-guessing skill in reading process. The skills based on the knowledge of metaphor and

metonymy have helped students get the right meaning of the unknown words in computer reading materials. It

has really enlarged students’ vocabulary and improved their confidence in finishing reading.

Significance of the Study

Reading is an active process; it involves guessing, predicting, and checking. It is an ability to understand

SHAN Chun-xin, lecturer, bachelor, College of Humanities, Ningbo Dahongying University.

WORD-GUESSING ABILITY IN ENGLISH READING COMPREHENSION913written words and respond to them in proper ways. Substantial knowledge and the size of vocabulary are good

predictors of reading and writing, and they play fundamental roles in English learning. Because of lacking of

vocabulary, most students find it difficult to finish the reading comprehension, especially those science and

technology materials. While with the rapid development of technology and science, the world has become a big

family in which people share and exchange knowledge, culture, technology, etc.. More and more such English

reading materials of science and computer have appeared in front of students. Few of students will guess the

words in these materials metaphorically or metonymically. So the application of metaphor and metonymy theory

should be drawn attention with vocabulary teaching in reading comprehension increasingly. In order to provide

English as a foreign language students with effective English language learning approaches, this investigation is

focused on how students deal with words when they are doing reading materials, and provides students with the

target language knowledge metaphors and metonymy, examining the impact on computer vocabulary guessing

and reading comprehension, through teaching the concept of metaphor and metonymy.

Research Questions

In this research, the new word-guessing method based on metaphor and metonymy was applied to

vocabulary teaching in reading comprehension of computer material. This research is aimed to prove the

hypothesis that the word-guessing method based on the knowledge of metaphor and metonymy produces better

result in understanding the meaning of some unknown words. The research question is studied in this experiment:

Can the training of using word-guessing skills based on the knowledge of metonymy and metaphor promote

students’ ability of word-guessing in reading comprehension of computer material?

All Rights

Participants

In this experiment, the subjects were 80 non-English major students from two classes in Ningbo

Dahongying University: with the same teacher. There were 41 students in Class One, which was researched as

experimental class, while there were 39 students in Class Two, which was researched as the control class.

English scores of these students in the University Entrance Examination in the two classes are 107.5 and

108.3. So there is almost no obvious difference between these two classes and students’ proficiencies are

roughly the same. An English reading comprehension of computer material (40 total words) of a vocabulary

guessing test is taken before the experiment at the beginning of this term. Statistic data analysis is made for

the scores of these students. In vocabulary pre-test, the statistic result shows that p = 0.689 > 0.05 (see Table

1). It indicates that there is no significant difference in their ability of guessing words in reading

comprehension. Therefore, it is considered that there is no comparability between the students from Class

One and students from Class Two.

Table 1

Data Analysis of Word-Guessing Test in Pre-test

Word-guessing

pre-test

Class

Control class

Experimental class

N

39

41

Mean

60.5128

60.8537

Std. deviation

8.29512

8.97235

Std. error mean

1.32828

1.40125

Sig. (2-tailed)

0.689

914

WORD-GUESSING ABILITY IN ENGLISH READING COMPREHENSIONInstruments and Materials

The instruments used in this study were 40 computer words in eight short reading comprehensions of

computer material, which were designed to test students’ ability of guessing words and a questionnaire survey to

find out what word-guessing skills students usually use in reading comprehension. The topic of passages is the

computer, the subjects were asked to write down the meaning of the words in test under using word analysis

strategies while coping with the unfamiliar words.

Procedures

During this experiment, different teaching methods were adopted in the two classes. Students from Class

One were taught the conceptual of metonymy and metaphor in reading, and using the method of guessing words

based on the knowledge of metonymy and metaphor. While students from Class Two were taught with the

traditional word-guessing skills.

Concepts of metonymy and metaphor are introduced to students by very simple, brief explanations and

illustrations under the help of some specific examples. One of the examples is the analysis of meanings and

usages of “save”. Its metonymical meanings are produced in these processes: save 存款-存盘-保存. Through

some simple examples and explanation, students could get a general knowledge of metonymy and metaphor.

After that, a brief theoretical knowledge is introduced to them. The phenomena of metonymy and metaphor are

very common in computer reading materials. So students should learn to use this word-guessing skill. It provides

possibility for students’ mental access with which they can recognize conceptual entity B by pursuing the

conceptual characteristics of conceptual entity A. It is a replacement of contiguous concepts in essence, showing

All Rights “A stands for B” relation. The forms of part for whole, whole for part, place for people, producer for product,

material for action, time for action, and prospect of illocution for result of the action are very typical.

Lakoff and Johnson (1980) argue that people usually use their knowledge to try to comprehend the world

around them, and it is very common and normal. This allows them to understand a wide range of various

experiences with non-human entities in terms of human motivations, characteristics, and activities. For example,

Computers are people./My computer is stupid./Let me read the error message that the computer gives me./This is

written in computer language./The computer has a motherboard./I have engaged the sleep function on my

computer./That computer ate my floppy disk. The partial structuring of metaphor is an essential point in the

understanding of metaphorical mapping from people to computers. Computers do not have legs, nor do they have

hands. The highlight is its function, in other words, the data manipulation instead of its physicality. Computers

are containers./This is another way that computers are understood metaphorically./How much storage space does

your computer have?/Can I save this in your computer?/I can’t get my paper out of my computer./My computer is

almost full.

Metonymy is traditionally considered as a figure of speech involving a process of substitution of one

linguistic expression for another. There are many expressions in netspeak produced on the basis of metonymy.

For example, beautiful eyebrow “美眉”—pretty girl, belongs to the Part of a Thing for the Whole Thing in

metonymy.

It is widely known, eyebrow means “眉”, it is a part of human body. It refers to the young girl with

the addition of an adjective word beauty “美”. In this sense, eyebrow “眉”, part of the body, is used to represent

for the whole person—Part of a Thing for the Whole Thing, and such kind of metonymy is very rich in the form of

WORD-GUESSING ABILITY IN ENGLISH READING COMPREHENSION915abbreviation in netspeak. There are some other examples: newbie “菜鸟”, prawn “大虾”, and sweat “汗”. When

the phrase newbie “菜鸟” comes into people’s eyes for the first time, it will be easily understood as a kind of bird.

In fact, it just refers to the one who is poor at the operating computer at the beginning, while it is referred to the

person who is inferior to doing something later. Newbie “菜鸟”, the effect of being poor at doing something,

stands for the causes. This phrase is the types of the effect for the cause, and so does the phrase of prawn “大虾”

with the same meaning of “大侠 (Roving Reptile Man)”. It indicates the person who is super in certain aspects

such as dealing with of high level of computer technology or property of writing articles and so on. Meanwhile, if

a person is ashamed of something or having nervous feeling, he or she will perspire. The word sweat “汗”

describes the effect of tension, and represents the reason of perspiring at the time. Students’ conceptual

metaphoric and metonymic awareness is trained during teaching word-guessing skills; they will gain an ability of

guessing words in conceptual metonymic and metaphoric mechanism.

Result and Analysis

In the above section, detailed procedures of this experiment have been described clearly. The statistical

software—SPSS19.0 was used to present a statistical evidence for the hypothesized effect and Independent

Sample T-test was used to analysis test comparatively to find if there are any possible differences between the

two classes at the end of the study in the training period. The following will make analysis for the scores of

pre-tests and post-tests. The scores are analyzed by t-test. And Table 2 is listed below.

Table 2

All Rights Analysis of Word-Guessing Post-Test Between the Control Class and Experimental Class

Word-guessing

pre-test

Word-guessing

post-test

Class

Class CC

Class EC

Class CC

Class EC

N

39

41

39

41

Mean Std. deviation

60.5128 8.29512

60.8537 8.97235

61.2692 8.44475

64.2948 9.35324

Std. error mean Sig. (2-tailed)

1.32828

0.689

1.40125

1.35224

0.002

1.49771

From analysis of data in Table 2, it can be dug out that word-guessing skills of metonymy and metaphor play

an important role in promoting students’ ability of guessing unknown words in reading comprehension of

computer materials. In the pre-test of word-guessing examination, there is no significant difference between the

scores of the control class and the experimental class (Ppre-test = 0.689 > 0.05). And through three months

training of word-guessing skills based on the knowledge of metonymy and metaphor, there is a significant

difference in scores of the post-test between these two classes. Mean scores of word-guessing in the experimental

class is 3.0265 points higher than that in the control class. It means the whole class have improved their

word-guessing ability generally (Ppost-test = 0.002 < 0.05). Therefore, it can be concluded that word-guessing

skills based on the knowledge of metonymy and metaphor guide the students to get the meaning of vocabulary in

reading comprehension well as well as promote their reading competence.

Table 3 and Table 4 are comparisons of pre-test and post-test scores in the control class and experiment class

by independent sample t-test respectively.

From comparison of pre-test and post-test scores of word-guessing test between the experimental class and

the control class, it can be found that, scores of the post-test have shown a rise respectively in both the

916

WORD-GUESSING ABILITY IN ENGLISH READING COMPREHENSIONexperimental class and control class. However, there is a higher rise in experimental class than that in the control

class. In the control class, comparing scores from word-guessing pre-test and post-test p = 0.108 > 0.05. As for

the scores in the experimental class, p = 0.000 < 0.05. Therefore, there is a significant difference in scores of the

pre-test and post-test for the experimental class, while there is no significant difference for the control class.

Table 3

Comparison of Pre-test and Post-test Scores in the Control Class

Class CC

Test N Mean Std. deviation Std. error mean Sig. (2-tailed)

Pre-test 60.5128 8.29512 1.32828

39 0.108

Post-test 61.2692 8.44475 1.35224

Table 4

Comparison of Pre-test and Post-test Scores in the Experimental Class

Class EC

Test N Mean Std. deviation Std. error mean Sig. (2-tailed)

Pre-test 60.8537 8.97235 1.40125

41 0.000

Post-test 64.2948 9.35324 1.49771

Through analysis from the pre-test of word-guessing test, students are found out that they did not understand

what a sentence or a passage wants to convey. Through the analysis from the post-tests, it can be found that there

is a great improvement in the ability of guessing word for the students in the experimental class. Most students

were able to understand metonymical and metaphorical words and expressions in the reading materials.

Therefore, it can be concluded that there is a high effectiveness for word-guessing skills based on the knowledge

of metaphor and metonymy comparably.

All Rights sion

The results show that students have gradually paid attention to the word-guessing skill in reading process.

The skill based on the knowledge of metaphor and metonymy in guessing word has helped students get the right

meaning of the unknown words in computer reading materials. It has really enlarged students’ vocabulary and

improved their confidence in finishing reading. During the teaching of reading comprehension, teachers should

make students realize that meeting unknown words in the reading materials is normal. There are many skills of

guessing words, and in fact, some students can use. There are many metaphorical and metonymical uses of

words and expressions in English, and teachers should introduce students the knowledge of conceptual

metaphor and metonymy with a brief introduction and explanation. Thus, the knowledge of how the meanings of

a word are derived can be made clearly to students, so as to understand the principles and cognitive mechanism

in this changing.

As it is discussed, vocabulary is the basic unit of a language. It is of vital importance for the complete of reading

comprehension. A foster of word-guessing skills can help students develop their reading competence. More research

needs to be done on effectiveness of application of word-guessing skills based on the knowledge of metaphor and

metonymy in English reading.

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