The Effects Of Places Of Glosses On Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition By English-major College Students

Vocabulary is the foundation of language and of great significance in language learning. However, in the university English teaching or learning, vocabulary learning witnesses bottlenecks. Therefore, some scholars proposed Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition(IVA), which occurs in independent reading. Glosses, as an input to strengthen, are used to promote reading comprehension and IVA.Although there are some researches related to IVA, the research about the places of glosses is relatively few. The places of glosses have great values in incidental vocabulary acquisition. The gloss in improper place can increase cognitive load, decreasing cognitive processing and reducing learning efficiency. Therefore, this study aims to explore relationship between the places of gloss and IVA.Using general sampling, 120 English majors from a university in Xi’an are chosen to be subjects to explore the effects of places of glosses on IVA. The places include text glosses, marginal glosses, and glosses at the end of the text. The effects of IVA are tested from short-term memory and long-term memory, and each vocabulary test includes vocabulary breadth test(translation)and vocabulary depth test(Word Association Test). Semi-structured interviews are used to understand students’ subjective experiences and inner feelings.With SPSS software, research data are processed by qualitative and quantitative analysis. Results reveal that in vocabulary breadth tests, text glosses> marginal glosses> glosses at the end of text, and significant differences exist between glosses at the end of text and two other places of glosses; in vocabulary depth test, text glosses>marginal glosses> glosses at the end of text, and significant differences exist between text glosses and two other places of glosses. Thus, the places of glosses have influences on IVA in some degree, and text glosses are most efficient to promote IVA.Finally, some implications for English teaching and English book publishing are given, and the shortage of this study and the suggestions for future studies are indicated.