| In most current research on incidental vocabulary learning, the relationship between exposure frequency and proficiency level remains largely unexplored, and the effect of contextual richness on the incidental vocabulary learning has not been comprehensively investigated either. This study investigates how exposure frequency and contextual richness affect the incidental acquisition of English vocabulary through reading by adult Chinese learners. It systematically replicates Zahar et al.'s (2001) study with a view to finding out (i) if the exposure frequency of a target word for it to be learned is related to learners' language proficiency, and (ii) to what extent contextual richness (including misdirective context) affect the incidental acquisition of the target words both receptively and productively. This will enable a more comprehensive understanding of the role of context and word frequency in incidental vocabulary learning.A Georgian folktale containing the four types of contextual levels was adopted as the reading text, from which 20 target words were chosen. Eighty-four Chinese college students representing three proficiency levels were tested on their receptive and productive acquisition of these words by performing a reading task and then taking posttests. The investigation was conducted two months after the new academic year began, within a period of 6 weeks. A Vocabulary Levels Test, a pretest and two immediate posts were administered. The differential design was applied, and data from the participants were analyzed quantitatively.The major findings of the study are: (1) Frequency does not correlate significantly with learning in terms of the participants' receptive mastery of the words, regardless of their proficiency level, which runs counter to Zahar et al.' (2001) result. However, frequency and productive learning correlate reasonably well at r = .36, and most of this effect pertains to the learners with the smallest... |
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