Nghiên cứu việc sử dụng các chiến thuật đoán từ trong kỹ năng đọc hiểu các bài khóa chuyên

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY,
HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST–GRADUATE STUDIES
*****************

HOÀNG THỊ MINH CHIÊM

A STUDY ON USING WORD GUESSING STRATEGIES IN READING
COMPREHENSION OF ECONOMICS TEXTS OF THIRD YEAR
STUDENTS MAJORING IN ECONOMICS AT PHUC YEN COLLEGE
OF INDUSTRY

(Nghiên cứu việc sử dụng các chiến thuật đoán từ trong kỹ năng đọc hiểu
các bài khóa chuyên ngành kinh tế của sinh viên năm thứ 3 chuyên ngành
kinh tế trường Cao đẳng công nghiệp Phúc Yên)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY
CODE: 60140111

Hanoi, 2014


VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY,
HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST–GRADUATE STUDIES
*****************

HOÀNG THỊ MINH CHIÊM

A STUDY ON USING WORD GUESSING STRATEGIES IN READING
COMPREHENSION OF ECONOMICS TEXTS OF THIRD YEAR
STUDENTS MAJORING IN ECONOMICS AT PHUC YEN COLLEGE
OF INDUSTRY

(Nghiên cứu việc sử dụng các chiến thuật đoán từ trong kỹ năng đọc hiểu
các bài khóa chuyên ngành kinh tế của sinh viên năm thứ 3 chuyên ngành
kinh tế trường Cao đẳng công nghiệp Phúc Yên)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY
CODE: 60140111
SUPERVISOR: PHẠM THỊ THANH THÙY, Ph.D

Hanoi, 2014


DECLARATION

I hereby state that I - Hoang Thi Minh Chiem, being an M.A candidate of the
Faculty of Post-graduate Studies, ULIS, VNU, certify my authorship of the study
entitled
A STUDY ON USING WORD GUESSING STRATEGIES
IN READING COMPREHENSION OF ECONOMICS TEXTS
OF THIRD YEAR STUDENTS MAJORING IN ECONOMICS
AT PHUC YEN COLLEGE OF INDUSTRY
The thesis is my own research and the substance of the thesis has not, wholly or
in part, been submitted for a degree to any other universities or institutions.
Hanoi, September 2014

Hoàng Thị Minh Chiêm

i


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude and love to my supervisor,
Ms. Pham Thi Thanh Thuy, Ph.D for her guidance, patience, comments, and
especially her sympathy throughout the whole research process. Her guidance
helped me in all the time of research and writing of this research.
My sincere thanks also go to Dr. Le Van Canh for his helpful suggestions during
this study. I would also like to thank all teachers at the Postgraduate Department,
ULIS, VNU, whose lectures and guidance have contributed to my understanding
of the problem and led to the completion of this thesis.
Especially, I wish to express my thankfulness to the teachers who will take their
precious time reading and commending on this thesis.
I would like to express my special thanks to all the students who have been really
helpful and cooperative in the implementation of the study.
My thanks go to many writers whose important ideas and notions are exploited
and developed in the study. And thanks also go to all librarians for their effort to
make the atmosphere of reading rooms as convenient and friendly as possible.
I warmly thank my parents for giving birth to me and supporting me spiritually
throughout my life.
And finally, I wish to send my thanks to my lovely sweet daughter for being a
nice girl and to my husband who always supports, cheers me up and stands by
me through the good and bad time.

ii

ABSTRACT
This study aims at examining the general strategies and the word guessing
strategies used by the third year students majoring in economics at Phuc Yen
College of Industry to deal with unknown words in reading comprehension
economics texts in reading lessons; and the difficulties they experience in using
these strategies. Three research questions are submitted and answered
accordingly. A survey questionnaire and a task sheets are used as two research
methods in this study. The results indicate that: the participants of this study
make use of various general strategies to deal with unknown words. Of all
strategies, guessing meaning from context is most frequently used one by the
students. Using local context and using discourse context are two most preferred
guessing strategies by the students. Most of them particularly have difficulties in
using strategies requiring knowledge of syntactic, association or collocation and
extra-textual to work out the meaning of unknown words. Discussion, research
limitations and implications for pedagogy and further research are also presented.

iii


LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

EFL: English as foreign language
ELT: English language teaching
ESL: English as second language
ESP: English for specific purpose
L2: Second Language
PCI: Phuc Yen College of Industry

FIGURE AND TABLES
Figure: Types of ESP
Table 1: Frequency use of general strategies for unknown words
Table 2: General strategies use for unknown words: Mean analysis
Table 3: Frequency use of guessing strategies for unknown words
Table 4: Guessing strategies for unknown words: Mean analysis
Table 5: Guessing strategies for unknown words
Table 6: Ranks of strategies use in the Questionnaire and the Task sheets.
Table 7: The outcome of word inferencing

iv


TABLE OF CONTENTS
DECLARATION ..................................................................................................... i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................................... ii
ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................. iii
LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES ....................................................................... iv
PART I: INTRODUCTION .................................................................................... 1
1. Rationale for the study ......................................................................................... 1
2. Aims of the study ................................................................................................. 2
3. Research questions .............................................................................................. 3
4. Scope of the study ............................................................................................... 3
5. Significance of the study ..................................................................................... 3
6. Methods of the study ............................................................................................ 4
7. Organization of the study .................................................................................... 4
PART II: DEVELOPMENT ................................................................................... 5
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................................... 5
1.1 Overview of ESP .............................................................................................. 5
1.1.1 Definitions of ESP ........................................................................................ 5

1.1.2 Characteristics of ESP ................................................................................. 5
1.1.2.1 Characteristics of ESP in general ............................................................. 5
1.1.2.2 Characteristics of English for Economics ................................................ 6
1.1.2.3 Characteristics of English Economics Texts ............................................ 7
1.2 The Nature of Reading Comprehension ........................................................... 9
1.2.1 Definitions of Reading Comprehension ........................................................ 9
1.2.2 Reading Comprehension Strategies ............................................................. . 9
1.2.2.1 Definition of Reading Comprehension Strategy ...................................... 9
1.2.2.2 Classification of Reading Comprehension Strategies .............................. 10
1.3 Guessing/ Inferencing Strategy ......................................................................... 11
1.3.1 Definitions of Strategy ................................................................................. . 11
1.3.2. Guessing/ Inferencing strategy .................................................................. 12
v


1.3.3 Classification Types of Guessing/ Inferrencing strategies ........................... 12
1.4 College Students’ Characteristics ...................................................................... 14
1.4.1 Definitions of Student ................................................................................... 14
1.4.2 Characteristics of College Students in General ............................................. 14
1.4.3 Characteristics of Economics Students ........................................................ 15
1.5 Summary .......................................................................................................... 16
CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY .................................................. 17
2.1 Research Context ............................................................................................... 17
2.1.1 An overview of Phuc Yen College of Industry.............................................. 17
2.1.2 Students’ background ................................................................................... 18
2.1.3 Teachers and teaching methods .................................................................... 18
2.1.4 Course book for teaching ESP ...................................................................... 19
2.2 Research Questions .......................................................................................... 20
2.3 Participants ........................................................................................................ 21
2.4 Data Collection Instruments .............................................................................. 21

2.4.1 Survey questionnaire ................................................................................... 21
2.4.2 Task Sheets .................................................................................................. 22
2.5 Data Collection Procedures ............................................................................... 23
2.6 Data Analysis Procedures .................................................................................. 23
2.7 Summary .......................................................................................................... 24
CHAPTER 3: DATA, DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION ........................... 26
3.1 Data analysis ..................................................................................................... 26
3.1.1 The students’ general strategies used for unknown words ............................. 26
3.1.2 Word guessing strategies used by the students .............................................. 29
3.1.2.1 The guessing strategies used by the students collected through the
questionnaire ............................................................................................................. 29
3.1.2.2 The guessing strategies used by the students collected through the task
sheets......................................................................................................................... 32

vi


3.1.2.3 The comparison of word guessing strategies used by the students in the
questionnaire and the task sheets ............................................................................... 32
3.1.3 The difficulties the student encounter when using the word guessing
strategies to make the guess ....................................................................................... 33
3.2 Discussion ......................................................................................................... 34
PART III: CONCLUSION ..................................................................................... 37
1. Conclusion .......................................................................................................... 37
2. Pedagogical Implications of the Study ................................................................. 38
3. Limitations and Suggestions for Further Research .............................................. 39
REFERENCES ....................................................................................................... 40
APPENDICES ......................................................................................................... I

vii

PART I: INTRODUCTION
1.

Rationale for the Study
In the last three decades, the “learner-centeredness” theory has become

very popular. It demonstrates that learners are the key component of the language
acquisition process. There is a fact that in the classroom, learners’ studying
results are not the same though they are taught by the same teachers and under
the same studying condition. Some students can acquire the language
successfully but some fail to master it. One of the main reasons is that different
learners employ different learning strategies. In other words, to be success in
learning a second language, learners themselves should use some suitable
learning strategies to make their learning more effective.
Reading is not simply a receptive process of getting information from the
page in a word-by-word manner (Grabe, 1991, p.1). It is considered a selective
process and characterized as an active process of comprehending. Therefore, to
become more successful, non-English-speaking readers will need to learn to use
different strategies to deal with unknown words encountered in reading. This is
also true for dealing with reading comprehension texts of English for Specific
Purpose (ESP). Generally, a good reader has appropriate strategies to deal with
unknown words in reading such as guessing or inferring the meaning of unknown
words in a text. Therefore strategies of guessing word meaning play an important
role in dealing with unknown words encountered in reading comprehension.
With the hope of helping students to be equipped with necessary
qualifications to get a good job after graduation, the English Faculty at PCI has
applied ESP courses for all majors in this college and major of economics is not
an exceptional one. Throughout the teaching ESP courses for economics major

students at this college, the researcher observed that the students’ results in
reading comprehension are not as good as what they have expected though they
have tried a lot. This situation has made the researcher wonder how the students

1


deal with their reading comprehension tasks, especially what general strategies
and what guessing strategies they employ to work out the meaning of unfamiliar
words when reading economics texts in reading lessons and what difficulties they
encounter in using these strategies. In an effort to find out the idea to deal with
this situation, the writer find that there are a lot of researches on guesswork in
reading comprehension, however almost no researches on using word guessing
strategies in reading ESP texts were carried out. Therefore, there is a need to
have some works on this issue with the hope that the study will be able to shed
some light on how the students actually do to deal with unknown words in
reading comprehension economics texts. It also seeks to inform teachers on the
problems the students encountered when they read.
The facts mentioned above have inspired the author to conduct a survey
research with the title: “A Study on Using Word Guessing Strategies in Reading
Comprehension of Economics texts of third Year Students Majoring in
Economics at Phuc Yen College of Industry”.
2.

Aims of the Study
The study aims at examining the general strategies that the students
used to deal with unknown words in the reading passages in English, the
guessing strategies the students used when they encounter unknown words in
reading comprehension economics texts and the difficulties they experience
in using these guessing strategies to make their guess. The specific aims of

research are as follow:

• To examine the general strategies that the students use to deal with
unknown words in English reading comprehension lessons.

• To discover the guessing strategies which are used by the students to deal
with unknown words when reading economics texts in reading
comprehension lessons.

• To find out the difficulties they confront in using these guessing
strategies to make the guess.
2


3.

Research Questions
In order to achieve the above aims, the following research questions
will be addressed:
(1) What general strategies do the students often use to deal with unknown
words while reading English economics texts in the reading lessons?
(2)

What guessing strategies do the students use to work out the meaning
of unknown words while reading comprehension economics texts in
reading lessons?

(3) What difficulties the students experience in using these guessing
strategies?
4.

Scope of the Study
Due to the limited time and small scale of the research, the author only

focuses on examining the general strategies the third year students at PCI use for
unknown words, the guessing strategies they employ to make out the meaning of
unknown words when reading economics texts in reading lessons and finding out
the difficulties the students encounter when employing these strategies.
5.

Significance of the Study
The study examines the general strategies used by the students to deal

with unknown words when reading economics texts in reading lessons, all
possible word guessing strategies employed by the participants and their
difficulties in using these strategies to make the guess to solve unknown words
problem in reading comprehension, so it would be of great value in making
students aware of the strategies they use for unknown words, the guessing
strategies they employ, the role of these strategies in improving their reading
comprehension skills for economics texts in English and help them have ideas to
turn reading lessons become more exciting and successful ones.

3


6.

Methods of the Study
To achieve the aims mentioned above, the author employs a task sheets

which includes an article and a post quiz; and survey questionnaire to collect
the data for the study. These will be discussed in detail in chapter 2,
methodology. The author believes that with the combination of different methods
to collect data the information for analysis would be more reliable and valid.
7.

Organization of the Study
There are three main parts in this thesis:
Part I – Introduction provides an overview of the study.
Part II – Development consists of three chapters:
Chapter 1- Literature Review presents the theory background which relates

to the research topic including the overview of ESP, the nature of reading
comprehension, guessing/ inferencing strategies.
Chapter 2 – Research Methodology deals with information of the research
context, participants, data collection instruments, data collection procedures, and
data analysis procedures.
Chapter 3 – Result and Discussion reports and discusses the main findings.
Part III – Conclusion describes the summary of the findings, implications,
limitations and recommendations for further studies.

4


PART 2: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW
1.1

Overview of ESP

1.1.1 Definitions of ESP
Until now there have been many ideas and different definitions by
different authors of the English term “English for Specific Purposes” (ESP) to
distinguish it from the other term - "General English" (GE - Basic English).
According to Hutchinson and Waters (1987, p.19), ESP is “an approach to
language teaching in which all decisions as to content and approach are based on
the learner’s reason for learning”. They see ESP as an approach which is
instructed by particular and obvious reasons for learning. Strevens (1988, p.1)
defined: “ESP is a particular case of the general category of special – purpose
language teaching”. He defined ESP by identifying its absolute and variable
characteristics.
1.1.2 Characteristics of ESP
1.1.2.1 Characteristics of ESP in General
In their recent study, Dudley-Evans and St. John (1998: 4-5) have
improved substantially Strevens’ definition by removing the absolute
characteristic that ESP is “in contrast with General English” (Johns et al., 1991:
298), and have included more variable characteristics.
Absolute characteristics


ESP is defined to meet specific needs of the learners;



ESP makes use of the underlying methodology and activities of the

discipline it serves;


ESP is centered on the language (grammar, lexis, and register),

skills, discourse and genres appropriate to these activities.
Variable characteristics

5




ESP may be related to or designed for specific disciplines;



ESP may use in specific teaching situation, a different methodology

from that of General English;


ESP is likely designed for adult learners, either at the tertiary level

institution or in a professional work situation. It could, however, be for learners
at the secondary school level;


ESP is generally designed for intermediate or advanced students;



Most ESP courses assume some basic knowledge of the language

system, but it can be used with beginners.”
The division of ESP into absolute and variable characteristics is very
helpful to distinguish ESP from what is not ESP. It is very clear that the absolute
characteristics concern about the methodology of teaching and the factors of
language. Both the methodology and activities used in the ESP classroom,
therefore, are different from those of GE. However, according to Munby (1978),
one important feature which characterizes ESP as being different from other
general language courses, is that “the domains not only relate to distinctive
content, but also to discipline-specific lexis, genres and registers.”
1.1.2.2 Characteristics of English for Economics
All the above definitions show that ESP belongs to English language
teaching (ELT), and it may use, in specific teaching situations, a different
methodology from that of general English. It seems that English for Economics
forms an inseparable part of English for Business and Economics (EBE). The
simplified "Tree of ELT" (Hutchinson & Waters, 1987) illustrates the
relationships between EBE and ESP.
ESP is divided into 3 branches: English for Science and Technology
(EST), English for Business and Economics (EBE) and English for Social

6


Studies (ESS). Each of these branches falls into two categories: English for
Academic Purposes (EAP) and English for Occupational Purposes (EOP).
ESP

EST

EAP

EBE

EOP

EAP

ESS

EOP

EAP

EOP

English

English for

English for

English

English for

English

for

Technicians

Economics

for

Psychology

for

Medical

Secretaries

teaching

Study
Figure: Types of ESP (Hutchinson, 1987: 16)
From the figure above, it is obvious that ESP which is taught to students
majoring in economics at Phuc Yen College of Industry belongs to English for
Management Finance and Economics and it is a type of English for Academic
Purposes. Therefore, English for Economics has the following characteristics:
1) designed to meet specified needs of the learner in the field of economics;
2) related in content (that is in its themes and topics) to economics
disciplines, occupations and activities;
3) centered on language appropriate to economics activities in syntax, lexis
discourse, semantics and so on, and analysis of the discourse;
1.1.2.3 Characteristics of English Economics texts
In a recent study about the relevant translation skills, principles reflected in
translated economics texts, Wang & Fan (2014) summarize three prominent
linguistic characteristics of economics texts as follows:
(1) Terminology

Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (2005) defines terminology as "the
set of technical words or expressions used in a particular subject”. From the

7


definition of “terminology”, it is clearly that this word is connected with specific
subject field, and it can be described as a structured set of concepts that clarify
and put bases for a particular subject field or as an infrastructure of specialized
knowledge. In economics texts, there are a lot of terminologies or technical terms
with particular meaning. The words involving in expressions are simple and easy
to understand. One example is “closed economy” (one that does not interact with
other economies in the world). It is just made up by two simple words.
(2) Long Sentences
The second feature of economics texts involves with sentence length. In
economics texts, there are many long sentences. It is not difficult to find
economics texts with sentences consisting of several short pieces. For example,
“However, in recent years, some scholars and practitioners, particularly from the
developing world, argue that the impact of minimum wages on poverty is more
nuanced in theory and practice, particularly when the possibility of income
sharing among the poor is accounted for.” (Todaro, 2005 as cited by Wang &
Fan, 2014). Each part is divided by commas and presents different components,
mainly as adverbial, of a whole sentence. Although the sentence is long with
several parts, it is still understandable. That is to say, it is complicated in form
but simple in content.
(3) Figures and Tables
As economics texts always concerns about inflation rates, economic
growth, interest rates, economic growth, calculating, etc. which deal with plenty
of concrete figures (Huang, 2009 as cited by Wang & Fan, 2014), figures and
tables are used popularly in economics texts. Figures refer to graphs, flow charts,

maps, drawings, photos, etc. Tables refer to numerical values or text displayed in
orderly columns or rows. By using figures and tables, authors of economics texts
can describe economic principles with least length and make complex theory or
phenomenon become more simple and explicit.

8


1.2 The Nature of Reading Comprehension
1.2.1 Definitions of Reading Comprehension
Reading comprehension is the ability to read text, process it and
understand its meaning.
Smith (1985) admitted that reading comprehension involves bringing a
prior knowledge that readers already have in their heads interacted with what
they are reading, so that they can achieve comprehension.
According to Snow (2002) reading comprehension is: “the process of
simultaneously extracting and constructing meaning through interaction, and
involvement with written language. It consists of three elements: the reader, the
text and the activity or purpose for reading.”
Comprehension is a process in which readers filter understanding through
the lens of their motivation, knowledge, cognitive abilities and experiences.
Effective readers have a purpose for reading, and use their background
knowledge and experiences to relate to the text: readers don’t comprehend unless
they draw connections between what they read and their background knowledge
Tankersley (2003). Furthermore, Pang et al (2003) described reading
comprehension as an active process a reader made to construct meaning from a
text. This process which consists of using an interaction between a prior
knowledge, and drawing inferences from the different words and expressions the
writer uses, in order to comprehend information, ideas and viewpoints.
1.2.2 Reading Comprehension Strategies

1.2.2.1 Definition of Reading Comprehension Strategy
According to Block (1986), reading strategies indicate how readers
conceive a task, what textual cues they attend to, how they make sense of what
they read, and what they do when they do not understand a particular text.
Reading strategies can also be understood as “the special thoughts or behaviors
that individual use” to help learners to comprehend, learn and retain new
information from the reading text (O’Malley and Chamot, 1990). Also, Oxford
9


and Cohen (1992) proved the necessity of teaching learners more effective
methods or strategies so that they may be able to read more effectively.
Therefore, teachers should cater students with active and selective use of
strategies to help them fully comprehend reading texts.
Reading comprehension strategy can be defined as “a cognitive or
behavioral action that is enacted under particular contextual conditions with the
goal of improving some aspects of comprehension” (Graesser, A. C., 2007). In
this sense, the appropriate implementation of comprehension skills and strategies
is one of critical components of reading comprehension success.
1.2.2.2 Classification of Reading Comprehension Strategies
Reading comprehension strategies have been classified differently by
different authors. In his study, Rubin (1981) proposed six general reading
strategies namely clarification, guessing, deductive reasoning, practice,
memorization, and monitoring. These strategies might contribute directly to
language learning. Oxford’s (1990) classification is another taxonomy of
learning strategies that is used popularly in many language learning researches.
She divided learning strategies into six types. They are memory strategies,
cognitive strategies, compensation strategies, metacognitive strategies, affective
strategies, and social strategies.
In the scheme of O’Malley and Chamot (1990), there are three major

categories of reading strategies; cognitive, meta-cognitive and social/affective.
There are subcategories under each main category. Within the scope of this
study, just cognitive and metacognitive strategies are focused on. Cognitive
strategies involve manipulation or transformation of the material to be learned;
metacognitive strategies involve thinking about learning process, planning for
learning, monitoring of learning and self-evaluation of learning; and socio
affective strategies have to do with social-mediating activity and transacting with
others (Brown, 1994).

10


To sum up, reading comprehension is the act of understanding what you
are reading. It is an active process readers made by connecting their known
knowledge and a particular piece of writing to comprehend the author’s
messages. Importantly, to become successful readers, it is necessary for L2
learners to be active and selective in using strategies applying to fully
comprehend reading texts.
1.3 Guessing/ Inferencing Strategies
1.3.1 Definitions of strategy
In the setting of foreign language learning, to become successful, students
will need to learn to use different strategies to overcome obstacles they encounter
in their learning process.
Strategy is defined in the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary as “a
plan that is intended to achieve a particular purpose”. (Oxford 2005).
Cohen (2000) stated that the term “strategies” has, in fact, been used to
refer both to general approaches and to specific actions or techniques used to
learn a second language.
In a study examining the use of strategies and knowledge sources in L2
lexical inferencing and their relationship with inferential success, Nassaji (2003)

clarified strategies as “conscious cognitive or metacognitive activities that the
learner uses to gain control over or understand the problem without any explicit
appeal to any knowledge source as assistance” These activities include
"repeating", "verifying", "self inquiry", "analyzing", "monitoring", and
"analogy".
Brown (2007) defined strategies as the "specific methods of approaching a
problem or task, modes of operation for achieving a particular end, planned
designs for controlling and manipulating certain information." He distinguishes
between strategies and styles. Styles are “consistent and rather enduring
tendencies and preferences within an individual". Strategies on the other hand,

11


vary within individuals from moment to moment as the specific problems and
contexts change.
1.3.2 Guessing/ Inferencing Strategy
Guessing intelligently in reading, sometimes called "inferencing",
involves using a wide variety of linguistic and nonlinguistic clues to guess the
meaning when the learner does not know all the words (Oxford, 1990). Though
the term “guessing” is more widely accepted and less awkward (Clark & Nation,
1981), these two terms, guessing and inferencing, will be used interchangeably in
this study.
Haastrup (1991) claimed that guessing is a cognitive strategy since
cognitive strategies are the steps or operations used in learning or problem
solving that require direct analysis, transformation or synthesis of learning
materials and it does not automatically lead to learning, although it has the
potential for doing so.
Carter (1987) (cited in Lawson & Hogben, 1996) stated that the more
advanced learners are “the more likely they are to benefit from learning words in

context”. He emphasized that learners vary in their way to make inferences and
in their ability to make valid, rational and reasonable inferences.
1.3.3 Classification Type of Guessing/ Inferrencing Strategies
Numerous researchers (Roskams 2005; Kaivanpanah and Alavi, 2008 and
Huaiyong Gao, 2012) have investigated the classifications of inferencing
strategies.
Kaivanpanah and Alavi (2008), from a study on the role of linguistic
knowledge, identify seven different inferencing strategies. The first strategy is
looking for relationships between words to determine the meaning of unknown
word. It belongs to sentence level grammatical knowledge. The second one is
deconstructing word parts and examining the meaning of each part, which lies in
the level of word morphology and class membership. The third one is analyzing
the compound words into their constituents. This strategy is similar to the second

12


in that it involves deconstructing words and examining the meaning of each part.
The next strategy they find is sentence level semantic clues. This strategy seems
to be more sophisticated and shows deeper word knowledge than the previously
mentioned strategies. The next strategy involving discourse/text, by which
learners attempts to look beyond the word, or even the sentence, level for clues to
determine the meaning. And homonym/ phonetic similarity and collocation are
the last two strategies. The former compares words that sound similar in the
second language and the latter uses knowledge of how words are usually paired
together to infer meaning.
Huaiyong Gao (2012), based on Palmberg’s (1987) understanding of the
characteristics of the unknown words and the context clues where those unknown
words occurred, from a new perspective classified these strategies systematically
into five types, namely: (1) Paraphrasing Devices, which consisted of definition,

exemplification, and restatement. (2) Logical Clues, which included comparison
and contrast, causal clues, parallel, or parataxis, and collocation. (3) Background
Clues, which were composed of scene, common knowledge, and experience. (4)
Morphological Clues and (5) Monitoring Devices. He adds that these strategies
though classified separately, it does not mean that they work in isolation. Readers
might employ more than one strategy in facilitating their understanding of the
text in reading.
Taxonomy of inferencing strategies is built by Roskams (2005) (cited in
Qiaoying Wang (2011)). The taxonomy including seven different guessing
strategies as follows:


Guess using extra textual (thematic or world) knowledge



Guess using discourse context i.e. outside the sentence in which the word
occurred (using forward or backward context)



Guess using syntactic knowledge



Guess using visual forms (similarity or morphological understanding)



Guess using phonological similarity

13




Guess using local (sentence level) context



Guess using association or collocation knowledge (i.e. a clue word)
With the advantage of having been designed with students as the primary

goal the above discussed strategies are relatively simple and easy for students to
follow and to remember. They are valuable resources for teachers use to improve
their students’ comprehension skills. Each strategy brings inside its own
advantages, one that suggested by Roskams (2005) seems to be the clearest and
the most suitable for students.
1.4 College Students’ Characteristics
1.4.1 Definitions of Student.
Being considered to be one of the most important factors in the education
sector, students with their own characteristics have been the subject of various
investigations. Accordingly, some definitions of the term “student” were given.
According to Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (2005) student is defined as
“a person who is studying at a university or college”. Another definition of this
term was found in Encyclopedia Dictionary – English: “student” is a word
derived from Latin root “student” which means a person who studies a particular
academic subject. In normal sense, students are people who are learning to
acquire knowledge, skills, professional skills in colleges and universities.
1.4.2 Characteristics of College Students in General

Each different age has its own characteristics influenced by mainstream
activity. Here, we are interested in students who are learning to acquire
knowledge, skills, and professional skills in colleges.
According to To (2011), one of the most important characteristics of
students is that they are self-conscious development. Thanks to the self-conscious
development, students have the knowledge, attitude, able to assess themselves to
adjust the proactive personal development in line with the trend of society. She
also adds that students are the future intellectuals, in their early emerging needs,
desires success. Studying in college is a great opportunity for students to

14


experience themselves, so students are interested in exploring new things, and
they love to express their own strengths, eager to learn, cultivation, and dare to
face the challenge to assert themselves. One more prominent characteristic of this
age is that they are energetic class, rich dreams and ambitions. Besides the
above-mentioned positive aspects, although there are certain qualifications,
students cannot avoid the general limitations of teenagers. It is immature in
thought, action, particularly in the absorption and learning new things.
Age students with psychological traits typically, this is their strength
compared with other age groups, such as self-aware and have feelings career,
capable of intellectual and emotional development (thirst to find new ones, like
to explore, discover), demand, desire to achieve, much like dreams and
experiences, to face the challenge. However, due to the limited life experience,
students also have limitations in selecting, acquiring new ones. The
psychological factors are dominant impact of learning activities, training of
students and strive.
1.4.3 Characteristics of Economics Students
“The students of the various fields can be characterized by specific and

varying types and impact of social desirability depending on their professional
career.” (J. Richter et al, 2011, p. 250).
Beyond the characteristics of a student, as mentioned above, students
majoring in economics have some distinguished ones which were found by J.
Richter et al (2011, p.250) in a longitudinal investigation about differences in
characteristics of students of economics, medicine and verbal communication
sciences. By employing the Temperament and Character Inventory and a life
event list to measure based on Cloninger’s unified biosocial theory of
personality, the study found that compared with the other two groups, economics
students described themselves as more reserved, controlled and restrained,
forward, outgoing and rather practical, tough minded, as well as more practical,
cold, withdrawn, detached, and independent. Furthermore, the authors of this

15


study investigated that students of economics are more resourceful, effective,
productive, competent, innovative, and tended to look at difficult situations rather
as challenges or opportunities, with a higher self-discipline, more rarely
confusing their priorities and feeling, more often safe and self-trusting. They also
described themselves as more mature, strong, responsible, goal-oriented, reliable,
and constructive. On the other hand, economics students were found more
opportunistic with a tendency to treat people unfairly in a self-serving manner.
1.5 Summary
This chapter presents the key issues related to the study including the
overview of ESP, the nature of reading comprehension, guessing/ inferencing
strategies and characteristics of college students. From the review of literature
the probable clues and sources of linguistic knowledge, linguistic strategies that
L2 readers may employ when making inferences are presented clearly and
systematically. With this theoretical background, it is hope that the study would

yield satisfactory result.

16