A Comparative Study Of Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition In Listening And Reading With The Application Of Involvement Load Hypothesis

Vocabulary plays an important role in second language acquisition; meanwhile,both vocabulary learning and acquisition have very crucial effects on English learning.Within the definition of incidental vocabulary acquisition, the factors which influencethe incidental vocabulary acquisition are studied. Some research studies from thelearners aspect, which consists of vocabulary size, reading ability, guessability,background knowledge and topic familiarity. Some research starts from the fourlanguage skills, listening, speaking, reading and writing. While others are on theaspect of word frequency. On the perspective of theory, there are Krashen’s Inputhypothesis, Swain’s Output theory; and Craik and Lockhart’s theory of depth ofprocessing, as well as Laufer and Hustijn’s involvement load hypothesis. Inspired bythe involvement load hypothesis which was proposed in2001, from the aspect of tworeceptive skills, this paper compares the different effects of listening and reading onincidental vocabulary acquisition in business English learning, with the aim to studythe effects of listening and reading on incidental vocabulary acquisition withapplication of the hypothesis, and to provide advice for the learners’ English learningand teachers’ business English teaching.First of all, the definitions of the incidental vocabulary acquisition and theinvolvement load hypothesis are introduced, as well as the comparison of intentionallearning and acquisition, and the previous theories and the hypothesis. On the basis ofthe previous studies, the present study raises two research questions:(1)When the involvement load are the same, is there a significant difference ofincidental vocabulary acquired by listening and reading in immediate vocabulary test?(2)When the involvement load are the same, is there a significant difference ofincidental vocabulary acquired by listening and reading in delayed vocabulary test? Both quantitative and qualitive research approaches are used in this paper toanswer the questions, which include tests, questionnaires, and interviews. Thesubjects here are160sophomores majoring in finance from Yunnan NormalUniversity, and two business English teachers are the interviewees. The data iscollected and analyzed by SPSS, Excel, and Cool Edit. The results are:(1)When the involvement load is the same, there is no significant difference ofincidental vocabulary acquired by listening and reading in delayed vocabulary test.(2)When the involvement load is the same, there are two conditions. First one isthat when the involvement load is at a higher level, there is no significant differenceof incidental vocabulary acquired by listening and reading in delayed vocabulary test;meanwhile, when the involvement load is at a lower level, there is a significantdifference of incidental vocabulary acquired by listening and reading in immediatevocabulary test.The results obtained above indicates that listening and reading have the sameeffects on incidental vocabulary acquisition,which is explained clearly by the datafrom questionnaire and interview. It also supplies an effect and advice for businessEnglish learning and teaching.