A quantitative study into Chinese EFL learners’ lexical inference ability and strategy use in EFL reading

摘要

The purpose of this study is to investigate, from the perspectives of foreign language proficiency, majors and gender, the differentiations and homologies of Chinese undergraduates in terms of Lexical Inference Ability (LIA) and Lexical Inference Strategy Use (LISU). Three research questions are put forward and answered accordingly. The results indicate that: subject’s LIA and LISU are influenced differentially by their language proficiency, majors and gender. LISU can predicate LIA effectively. Research limitations and implications are also discussed in this study.