Effects Of Input Elaboration And Enhancement On Incidental L2 Idiom Acquisition Through Reading

Researches in the field of second language vocabulary acquisition (SLVA) have shown that wide reading contributes to incidental SLVA, while most previous studies predominantly focus on the incidental acquisition of single words of a second language (L2), and little attention has been paid to the acquisition of L2 idioms from reading. Meanwhile, the relationship between L2 idiom acquisition and reading has also been neglected in the field of idiom research. Therefore, this study investigates (1) whether it is possible for Chinese college English learners to incidentally acquire unknown English idioms through reading and (2) whether input elaboration, input enhancement, or a combination of both, has an effect on the incidental acquisition of unknown idioms through L2 reading by 201 sophomores.Participants involved in the main study are non-English majors from 4 English classes, each of which is an experimental group. The result of a cloze test conducted prior to the experiment proper shows that the four groups are of similar overall English proficiency. In the experiment, all the participants are exposed to 14 target idioms by reading one of four versions of an experimental text containing these idioms. Before reading, they are told that after reading they will take a reading comprehension test on the text content without the text available. Group A read an unmodified text; Group B read an elaborated text where all target idioms are immediately followed by explanation containing which means/that is/meaning plus a definition/a synonym; Group C read an enhanced text which contains all target idioms set in bold face; Group D read a text with both input elaboration and enhancement. After 10-minute reading, the text is collected and all the participants take an immediate form-recognition idiom posttest and a following meaning-recognition idiom posttest according to the directions. Descriptive statistics of the four groups'performance on the form- and meaning-recognition idiom posttests are used to investigate whether it is possible for Chinese college English learners to acquire unknown English idioms through reading. Meanwhile, this study adopts a 2×2 factorial multivariate analysis of variance design with text elaboration with two levels (elaborated, unelaborated) and enhancement with two levels (enhanced, unenhanced) as two independent variables, and form- and meaning-recognition idiom posttests as two dependent variables. The statistic tool-SPSS 12.0(Statistical Package for Social Sciences) is used to analyze the data. The results are: (1) it is possible for...