Investigating the Relationship Between Metalinguistic Knowledge and L2 Proficiency

概要

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Although numerous studies have examined the relationship between metalinguistic knowledge and L2 proficiency, this relationship has not been sufficiently clarified yet. The present study examined the relationship between metalinguistic knowledge and L2 proficiency among different groups of learners. Also, it clarified to what extent metalinguistic knowledge contributes to L2 proficiency. The participants were 50 Japanese undergraduates comprising instructed-only EFL learners, returnees who had had a great exposure to living English, and instructed learners who had experience of study abroad for about a year. The TOEIC Listening, TOEIC Reading, Writing Test, Written/Oral Grammaticality Judgement Tests, Knowledge of Grammatical Terms Test, and Words in Sentences Test were employed to examine the relationship between L2 proficiency and metalinguistic knowledge. First, it was found that learning and acquisition differences might lead to different representations of metalinguistic knowledge among different groups of learners. Next, hierarchical regression analyses revealed that metalinguistic knowledge does lead to some good performance on reading, but knowledge of grammatical terms and language-analytic ability do not, which can be explained by Bialystok's analysis and control theory. The result suggests that there might be some relationship between metalinguistic knowledge and metacognitive strategies in reading.
2012-03-28