Writing has been the weakest aspect of basic skills for Chinese learners. Some studies have shown that the lack of vocabulary knowledge is the biggest difficulty in Chinese students' writing. And the current field of research on vocabulary tends to focus on the quality and quantity of vocabulary, that is, the depth and breadth of vocabulary. This study tested the vocabulary breadth and depth of 80 English majors through an online questionnaire, aiming to investigate the correlation between vocabulary breadth and depth and students' writing proficiency. The findings showed that there was a high positive correlation between vocabulary breadth and writing, and that vocabulary breadth was an effective predictor of writing proficiency. There was a low positive correlation between vocabulary depth and writing, and vocabulary depth was a low predictor of writing proficiency; there was no significant relationship between vocabulary breadth and depth.

Tingting Zhang, Wenying Yi, Lijia Hu. A study on the correlation between vocabulary breadth and depth and English majors' writing proficiency. International Journal of Frontiers in Sociology (2022), Vol. 4, Issue 12: 66-71. https://doi.org/10.25236/IJFS.2022.041212.

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