Abstract
Research addressing the relationship between vocabulary knowledge and second language (L2) listening comprehension has been conducted mostly using measures that tap orthographic vocabulary knowledge. The few studies that have used measures that tap phonological modality to delineate the relationship between vocabulary and L2 listening have focused on either the receptive or productive dimension of vocabulary knowledge, but not both. To advance knowledge on this matter, this study investigated the degree to which two measures of phonological vocabulary knowledge correlated with, and were able to predict, scores on L2 listening comprehension. The researcher administered word frequency-based vocabulary measures tapping receptive/phonological vocabulary knowledge (RPVK) and productive/phonological vocabulary knowledge (PPVK), as well as a test assessing L2 listening comprehension, to 100 university-level native-Arabic-speaking learners of English as a foreign language. Results show that PPVK correlated most strongly with L2 listening (r = .74), followed by RPVK (r = .59). Hierarchical regression modelling indicated that PPVK predicted the largest variance in L2 listening (R-2 = .54) and that RPVK contributed only marginally to the overall predictive power of the regression model (R-2 = .013). Findings from the study address the varying significance of different dimensions of phonological vocabulary knowledge in L2 listening comprehension.