The Effects Of Different Gloss Modes On Incidental Acquisition And Retention Of Polysemous Words

Polysemous words are reported to impede language learning and acquisition,especially in reading where written text is considered the major source of vocabulary development.Glosses to the exact meanings of the words have being provided to avoid misunderstanding and disruption of reading process for L2 learners.The aim of this thesis is to explore the effects of gloss devices(i.e.,core sense gloss,contextual sense gloss and periphery sense gloss of a polysemous word) on incidental acquisition and retention of polysemous words as well as the influence of subjects' vocabulary levels.Based on the theories of Depth of Processing proposed by Craik & Lockhart(1972) and the Involvement Hypothesis by Hulstijn & Laufer(2001),this empirical study explored the effects of three gloss modes on incidental acquisition and retention of polysemous words on the basis of the subjects' vocabulary levels,which came from the PhD students of three parallel classes,non-English major in Beijing Forestry University.Those subjects in the three groups were respectively provided with fifteen contexts involving the fifteen target words glossed in three modes in English(L2),namely, contextual sense to the first group,the core sense and the contextual sense for the second and the contextual sense and periphery sense for the third one.Five procedures were included in the research; they were vocabulary level test,pilot study,reading comprehension,immediate and delayed vocabulary tests.After a series of experiments lasting for three weeks,SPSS 13.0 for Windows statistic software was used to compute data based on the research questions.One-way ANOVA and Pearson Correlation Coefficient were carried out in details. The results indicated that(1) glosses with core sense and periphery sense performed better than gloss with mere contextual sense for the acquisition and retention of polysemous words;(2) in short term acquisition,different gloss modes played a moderate role in determining the acquisition and retention of polysemous words;whereas,in long term retention,the subjects' vocabulary levels took more important role than different provision of gloss modes in the retention of those words.The significance of this study lies in its implications on gloss provision for teachers and textbook writers in their text adaptation,considering learners are different in language proficiency or in different teaching environments.The Vocabulary Level Test and reading materials in the form of textual contexts in this experiment have made an improvement to the early studies of this kind.