This book challenges prevailing linguistic presumptions concerning
contextual lexical meaning by examining whether pedagogic intervention
targeted at raising Chinese EFL learners' awareness of the pragmatic
nature of contextual lexical meaning can enhance the learners'
contextual lexical inferencing competence (CLIC). CLIC is crucial to the
development of a learners' vocabulary, reading ability and autonomy in
reading. Through an empirical study conducted among a group of adult
Chinese students of English, the author shows that the power of CLIC
instruction lies mainly in its effectiveness in enhancing learners'
self-confidence in making lexical inferences. This book will be of
interest to researchers and students of applied linguistics, TESOL,
language education, and for language professionals keen to extend their
research experience.