Research On The Repetition Of New Words In College English Textbooks

Rivers (1983) expresses that large number of foreign language vocabulary isthe cornerstone of successful use of language. College English in the present thesisrefers to English language courses attended by non-English majors in colleges inChina. With limited conditions, students acquire English mainly under the guidanceof the teachers with the textbook. In other words, textbooks play a significant role inthe components, methods and procedures of English learning for them.No matter how many mnemonic devices of vocabulary are, repetition alwaysseems to be the most basic requirement, for almost no one could claim that he couldlearn a word once and keep it in long-term memory or grasp it thoroughly. Andrepetition, one of the key words in this thesis will be discussed from different aspects,like the times, frequency and form. That is to say, repetition here is systematic andscientific rather than pure and random. Based on the theories of memory andrepetition, this thesis takes Reading and Writing1for Students of New HorizonCollege English (the2nd edition), which is abbreviated as NHCE v2b1rs in this thesis,as the research object. According to Cunningsworth (1984), Thornburry (2003:24),Nation (1982) and Kachroo (1962)’s opinions, the thesis analyzes new wordsrepeating less than three times, above seven times and above sixteen times. Amongthem, seven times is the most basic standard identified by many researchers onrepetition effects of words, three times is the minimum requirement of repetitionand sixteen will be perfect for new words repetition and memorization. The data willbe collected from the whole book and it is divided into the current unit, the followingunit and crossing units, which could illustrate whether the distribution of repetition isreasonable or not. The form of repetition is mainly shown in the Exercise part, whichalso could flexibly remedy the limitation of texts.It is obvious that the compilers have made great effort to the new wordsrepetition in this book. For example, Text A and Text B in each unit have similar topicsto increase the chances of repetition and exercises after each text are chosen or made up to be related to texts particularly. However, there’s plenty of scope to pushthat further. First of all, this research finds that among734new words in this book,about24%words repeat above seven times, around23%words repeat less thanthree times and only about6%new words do well not only in repetition times butalso in distribution. Second, as for the distribution of repetition, the current andcross units do relatively well, especially Unit1and Unit5, while the current andfollowing units still have much to improve. Third, exercise parts also have manychances to repeat new words. Among them, new words repetition in Vocabulary partand Text Analysis part occurs the most. While the other parts of exercise still havemuch room to increase new words repetition for their flexibility and subjectivity. Atlast the new words density, or difficulty index, in each unit is shown from the aspectof the relationship between new words repetition and difficulty.There are six chapters in the thesis. After the introduction of the thesis,literature review on studies and criteria for material evaluation, vocabulary teachingand study and recap of researches on repetition and lexical repetition will bepresented. Based on theories on memory and repetition, data collection and analysisof the current unit, the following units and cross units will be further discussed. Fromthe perspective of times, frequency, distribution and form, the condition of newwords repetition is illustrated. Thus, some suggestions on new words repetition tothe compilers, teachers and learners will be given at last to help them design thebook more reasonable or learn the new words more effectively and efficiently.