Effects Of Reading Task,input Frequency And Lexical Item Type On Non-english Majors' Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition

Vocabulary acquisition has always been one of the most challenging and difficult parts of second language acquisition with vocabulary serving as a vital role in language acquisition.As much research has shown reading is one of the main ways of acquiring new words,many researchers who focus on incidental vocabulary acquisition(IVA)have put emphasis on the field of L2 reading.In recent years,a great many researchers have attached much importance to the factors that may influence incidental vocabulary acquisition.However,few studies on incidental vocabulary have been comprehensively focused on two or more factors.In addition,compared with previous studies on the incidental acquisition of single words,scant studies on the collocation acquisition have been conducted.At the same time,the difference of incidental acquisition of single words and collocations is still a gap that needs further exploring.And some studies only take receptive knowledge acquisition as the criterion of IVA.Therefore,according to the Involvement Load Hypothesis,input hypothesis and noticing hypothesis,this study attempts to explore the effects of input frequency,task types and lexical item types on non-English majors' acquisition of receptive and productive knowledge through reading.Specifically,it addresses the following research questions:1.Do two different reading tasks have different effects on learners' L2 receptive and productive acquisition respectively through reading?2.Do two different input frequencies have different effects on learners' L2 receptive and productive acquisition respectively through reading?3.Do lexical item types,specifically,single word and collocation,have different effects on learners' L2 receptive and productive acquisition respectively through reading?4.How do input frequency,task type and lexical item type affect L2 receptive and productive acquisition through reading in detail?The present study is a 2(input frequency)*2(task type)*2(lexical item type)factorial design.The tasks include reading a text with target words blank-filling and writing a summary(task B)and reading a text and writing a summary(task A);the target words occurred twice and four times;lexical item types comprise single word and collocation.Task type and input frequency constitute between group factors and lexical item is a within group factor.And subjects were divided into four groups and were exposed to 12 target words(6 single words and 6 collocations).The results show that non-English majors do acquire some new words incidentally through reading,specifically(1)the task B with higher involvement load produces better performance in both receptive and productive vocabulary acquisition;(2)there is no significant difference between 2-time occurrence and 4-time occurrence on L2 receptive and productive acquisition;(3)with 2-time occurrence of target words,single words acquisition is better than collocation one.However,with 4-time occurrence of target words,there is no apparent significance between single words and collocations acquisition,especially for productive acquisition;(4)most students' acquisition scores are at a middle level in receptive vocabulary acquisition and their score are at a low level in productive acquisition regardless of lexical item types.Concerning the interactive effects of these three factors,it seems that frequency has a great impact on incidental acquisition of collocation,which is worthy of deeper exploration in future studies.The results may to some extent show the evidence for supporting the Involvement Load Hypothesis proposed by Laufer and Hulstijin(2001),while the input hypothesis is not proved greatly in this study probably due to the relative low input frequency the study focuses on.The present study can also provide some suggestions for ways of vocabulary teaching and learning.It is much better for teachers to choose the tasks with higher involvement loads to draw students' attention on new words or collocations.And for collocations acquisition which is more difficult than single words acquisition,it seems sensible to use the combination of incidental and intentional teaching,which may come into better effect for L2 vocabulary learning.