A Study Of The Effects Of Computer-Mediated Communication On L2Vocabulary Acquisition

With the development of the society, the popularization of computer technologybuilds up a bridge for people to interact with each other and provides language learnersmore chances to learn language. In the field of Second Language Acquisition,Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) gradually attracts more and more attention.Many researches show the positive effects of CMC on language learning from differentperspectives. However, the related researches are not so favored in China.Applying Interaction Hypothesis, Attention Hypothesis and Comprehensible InputHypothesis as the framework, this thesis aims to explore the effects of CMC on vocabularyacquisition in comparison with those of face-to-face communication. The researchquestions to be addressed in this study are:1. Can written CMC facilitate immediate vocabulary acquisition? If so, to what extentdoes written CMC facilitate immediate lexical form/meaning acquisition? Is it as effectiveas face-to-face oral communication?2. Can written CMC facilitate vocabulary retention? If so, to what extent does writtenCMC facilitate lexical form/meaning retention? Is it as effective as face-to-face oralcommunication?60non-English-major freshmen from China West Normal University participated inthis experiment and were divided into two groups randomly. The participants in one groupwere required to interact in pairs with30English-major juniors and to complete aninteractive task through written CMC. The participants in another group were required tointeract in pairs with these30English-major juniors and to complete the same interactivetask through face-to-face oral communication. When the task was ongoing or after it wasfinished, immediate form/meaning acquisition tests and delayed form/meaning retentiontests were conducted. The data accepted were analyzed and compared by SPSS16.0.The findings of the present study show that written CMC facilitates immediatevocabulary acquisition more effectively than face-to-face oral communication. Retentionof the words acquired through written CMC is still better than retention of the wordsacquired through face-to-face oral communication. However, the comparisons between theimmediate acquisition and delayed retention tests in the two groups show almost the same notable drop of the retention rate. Therefore, rehearsal and practice of the words are stillneeded if you want to keep the superiority of CMC for a long while. Nevertheless, whatcan be affirmed is that CMC does provide a much wider platform for language learning.It is hoped that the current study may give some implications for the future studies ofCMC in SLA. In addition, the results tend to provide both theoretical and practicalimplications for language teaching and learning in China.