A Probe Into Involvement Load Hypothesis In Incidental Vocabulary Learning

Vocabulary learning is the corner stone of language learning. The importance of vocabulary learning has been recognized by language learners, and has received more and more attention of the language teachers and linguists. It is believed most of vocabulary is not gained in ordinary classes, but accidentally acquired by language learners while they are finishing the other tasks. Since Nagy, Herman and Anderson proposed the Incidental Vocabulary Learning Hypothesis in 1980s, the study on incidental vocabulary learning has been a hot topic. However, there are few researches on IVL in China. Among the few studies, most are designed to explore the relationship between reading and incidental vocabulary learning. There is an urgent need to do a survey to investigate the role of writing in IVL. Besides, what kind of study tasks fosters this acquisition more effectively also attracts researchers'attention.The present study intends to indicate the role of reading task and writing task in incidental vocabulary learning (IVL). Based on the previous researches, the author conducts a one-year experiment, including a pilot study and two tests, to testify the Involvement Load Hypothesis. The author uses the two tests to record the results of learning and retention of the target words acquired incidentally. Through the experiment, the author aims to testify the following predictions: [1] the participants who are required to finish reading and writing tasks could learn some words; [2] of the three tasks, writing task is the most effective for incidental vocabulary learning both in immediate test and the delayed test; [3] output tasks probably lead to better retention of the productive vocabulary than the input task.The experiment basically employs the software SPSS 14.0 and One-way ANOVA in order to analyze the collected data based on the scores of participants. The author finally comes to the following conclusions: [1] Incidental vocabulary learning does occur in the process of finishing the reading and writing tasks.; [2] of the three tasks, writing task is the most effective for incidental vocabulary learning both in short-term retention and long-term retention; [3] The properties of the tasks influence the quality of vocabulary knowledge gained in the process of finishing the different tasks. Beyond our expectation, the experiment also shows that teachers'instructions and explanations of the target words also facilitate students'vocabulary learning.The study has both theoretical and practical values. Theoretically, this empirical study partially testifies the validity of Involvement Load Hypothesis and at the same time provides empirical data to prove, revise it. Practically, it provides some instructions for language learners and teachers to improve vocabulary learning. The author hopes the current study could shed some suggestions on the related studies.