Abstract: Adopting the paused transcription method，this research compare the word recognitions of following word categories: content and function words，nouns and verbs，prepositions in prepositional phrases and verb phrases． The aim of this research is to explore the learners' attentional focus in listening comprehension by word recognitions． The analysis of the word recognised indicated that content words，nouns and prepositions in prepositional phrases recognition were higher than those of function words，verbs and prepositions in verb phrases． In addition，the research also indicated that learners with a more balanced noun /verb recognition profile tended to receive high listening comprehension scores and learners who could write down complete prepositional phrases were far more than those who could write down complete verb phrases．