The Effect Analysis Of Explicit And Implicit Cognitive Processes Of Second Language Learners In Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition Under A Chinese Context

Vocabulary,as one of the three essential elements of a language,holds a pivotal status in both second language learning and research field of second language acquisition.Recent years have witnessed a surge of interest in China among scholars and university teachers with regards to vocabulary acquisition.This surge has been manifested in the proliferation of paper publications on the topic over the past three decades.Related studies of vocabulary acquisition have shown that the vast majority of new vocabulary is learned without a clear intention by second language learners.In other words,it is now suggested that second language learners pick up a large amount of new words through an incidental way.The concept of ‘Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition Hypothesis' was first proposed by Nagy in 1985.In the process of incidental vocabulary learning,learners are required to complete a task including the processing of some information.The learners will not be told in advance that they will be tested afterwards on their recall of that information(Laufer & Hulstijn,2001).In recent years,extensive pieces of research have been carried out into incidental vocabulary acquisition.Most of the related studies of incidental vocabulary acquisition,however,have been conducted on the in-depth analysis of explicit cognitive processes.There are few studies on the implicit cognitive processes and its efficiency test.Therefore,based on the dichotomies of implicit and explicit cognitive processes,the theoretical basis,and the former studies' categorization of lexical processing strategies,the present study updated the classification of lexical processing strategies for the current experiment.The present study attempts to investigate the frequency,effects and the relevance of different lexical processing strategies for incidental vocabulary acquisition.In line with this objective,the research attempts to address the following four research questions:(1)What are the lexical processing strategies and how frequently are they used by experienced advanced English learners in China when facing unknown lexical items during reading processes?(2)What are the lexical acquisition effects of the vocabulary processing strategies used by experienced advanced English learners in China?(3)How does implicit and explicit cognitive processing of new words differ according to their learning effects?(4)To what extent can implicit cognitive processes be considered as successful strategies for vocabulary expansion?Although the topic of incidental vocabulary acquisition has generated much attention,only a few were conducted with a mixed research method.Since the mixed research method offers incomparable advantages over other single-element research methods,a mixed method of quantitative and qualitative research is employed in the current study,with Unknown Lexical Item Extraction Test,Think Aloud Protocol,and Vocabulary Retention Test for data collection.In order to avoid the negative effects caused by the variation of items,the present study selected the two test texts through online corpus.Thirty native Chinese speakers who are advanced English learners were invited as participants in this research.As typical second language learners under a Chinese context,they are the epitome of the current vocabulary acquisition.The participants were asked to read two texts to extract their unknown lexicon first.In the following,the strategies used by the experienced learners to cope with new words were recorded and analyzed according to the cognitive operation involved through Think Aloud Protocol.Ultimately,the features of different lexical processing strategies are discussed based upon the results of the Vocabulary Retention Test.Based on the statistics and analysis of the above data,this study explored how provisional lexical enters the mental lexicon.The results illustrate the relevance of different lexical cognitive processes of incidental vocabulary acquisition,verify the outcome of implicit processes,and provide evidence for different depth of processing.Besides,the current study constructs a multilevel model of positive processing features.In terms of theory,the present study confirms and updates the corresponding theories of second language vocabulary acquisition.In terms of practice,the findings of this study can provide corresponding suggestions for second language vocabulary teaching and improve the efficiency of English learners' vocabulary acquisition.In this way,the findings of this study may facilitate the development of second language vocabulary teaching.