Lexical Coverage in L1 and L2 Viewing Comprehension

Durbahn, Marion, Macis, Marijana ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9141-2403, Rodgers, Michael and Peters, Elke (2024) Lexical Coverage in L1 and L2 Viewing Comprehension. Studies in Second Language Acquisition. ISSN 0272-2631 (In Press)

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Abstract

This study investigates the relationship between lexical coverage and TV viewing comprehension. Previous studies have indicated that 95%-98% lexical coverage may be needed for reading comprehension (Hu & Nation, 2000). To understand informal listening passages, lower coverage figures (95%-90%) may suffice (van Zeeland & Schmitt, 2013; Noreillie, et al., 2018). However, no study has researched the lexical coverage needed to understand audio-visual texts. We adopted a counter-balanced within-participants design, in which 5%, 10% or 20% of the words in four 2-minute documentaries were replaced with non-words. Native and non-native speakers of English participated in this study. Results showed that: 1) comprehension scores decreased as lexical coverage decreased; 2) comprehension at 100% coverage was significantly higher than 90% and 80% in the two groups; and 3) optimal adequate comprehension is achieved with an optimal lexical coverage of 95%, whereas minimal adequate comprehension is reached with a minimal lexical coverage of 80%.