The Effects Of Vocabulary Size On The Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition In A Mode Of Auditory And Visual Input

Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition (IVA) is considered as an effective way for second language learners in expanding vocabulary. For decades, linguists have paid great attention to the theoretical and empirical researches on IVA. However, most of the researches focused on different aspects of IVA and advanced learners. Little attention has been paid to the interaction of different factors and lower-lever learners. This paper probes into the influential factors and their interaction on IVA of lower-level learners with an experiment. Based on the theories of Noticing Hypothesis (Schmidt,1990), Depth of processing Hypothesis (Craik & Lockhart,1972) and the Theory of Memory, from a new perspective this study explores how learner-based factors such as students’vocabulary level and input factor influence Chinese high school students’ IVA. The result of the experiment indicated:(1) High School Grade One students, with the vocabulary of 1400 to 2205, were able to incidentally acquire vocabulary through reading and reading-while-listening input; (2) Students with high vocabulary level acquire bigger vocabulary than that of the lower level, and outperformed the latter in vocabulary retention; (3) High-level students did benefit a lot from the reading-while-listening input mode. But statistics showed that lower level students were influenced by the joint effects of input mode and vocabulary size. The mechanism of the interaction was discussed.