Learning and use of specialized vocabulary among native and non-native English-speaking graduate students of theology
By: by Michael Lessard-Clouston.
Published: 2005
Language: eng
Number of pages: 227
Subjects: Theology -- Study and teaching.; Native language and education.; Theology -- Terminology.; Word recognition.; English language -- Vocabulary -- Study and teaching -- Foreign speakers.
Description: This thesis examines the specialized vocabulary of theology and describes non-native English speaker (NNES) and native English speaker (NES) participants' learning and use of it during their early socialization into a graduate school of theology (GST). The 12 participants were 5 NNES and 7 NES graduate students, and the research was conducted using a qualitative approach within a broad language socialization and second language acquisition perspective. To answer 3 research questions I analyzed the materials and lectures in a core course at the GST and collected data from students through tests, questionnaires, interviews, and written materials in order to describe their specialized vocabulary learning and use in this context.The analysis of the Introduction to Theology lectures as a lexical environment provides detailed information on specialized theological vocabulary which was used not only in oral form but also in various written forms, providing elaboration and salient focus which reinforced spoken input and therefore appeared to offer participants a potentially enriched environment in which to learn this vocabulary. Participants' results on a test of theological language (TTL) reveal that both groups brought some breadth and depth knowledge of specialized theological vocabulary to their studies, but that the NNES group's scores on both measures tended to be lower than those of the NESs. At the end of the term, the TTL results indicated that there was an overall increase in scores, but while the gap between the NNES and NES groups in breadth vocabulary knowledge was essentially bridged, for depth vocabulary knowledge the gap between them actually widened. Computerized analyses of participants' term papers revealed the importance of academic vocabulary and showed that NNES and NES students used target theological vocabulary items quite similarly in their assignments. Participants' strategies in and approaches to specialized vocabulary learning in this context were documented and analyzed on the basis of the amount of structure they used in their approaches to technical vocabulary learning in this context. Results showed that NNES and NES participants were represented in both structured and unstructured groups, and that more and less successful students (as determined by their TTL scores and improvement) were represented across language backgrounds and structured and unstructured approaches to specialized vocabulary learning.
Notes: Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Toronto, 2005.

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 172-197).