Incidental Acquisition Of English Lexical Chunks Through Reading Comprehension

Using empirical methods, the present study investigated incidental acquisition of lexical chunks through English reading comprehension among 40 postgraduate students majoring in English, based on the Involvement Load Hypothesis theory. The study was designed to examine: 1) the effect of after-reading intervention tasks with different involvement loads on the initial learning and delayed retention of lexical chunks; 2) the effect of after-reading intervention tasks with the same involvement load on the initial learning and delayed retention of lexical chunks.This paper used Lewis’ s definition of lexical chunks, Nattinger and De Carrico’s classification of lexical chunks. The four after-reading intervention tasks are: multiple choices, gap-filling, sentence writing and composition writing. The involvement load of sentence writing task and composition writing task is the same and the highest; the gap-filling task is lower and the multiple choices is the lowest. Lexical chunk acquisition was measured using Paribakhe and Wesche’s Vocabulary Knowledge Scale. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS17.0.The results showed that: 1) intervention tasks with different involvement loads had different effects on the initial learning of target lexical chunks. Initial learning was highest in the sentence writing task, lower in the gap-filling task and lowest in the multiple choices task but effects of the later two tasks were not significantly different. However, in the delayed retention of target lexical chunks, there was no significant difference among effects of intervention tasks with different involvement loads; 2) intervention tasks with the same involvement load promoted the same effect of initial lexical chunks acquisition. Sentence writing task promoted better initial learning of target lexical chunks than composition writing task but effects of the two tasks didn’t reach a significant difference. Similarly, the two tasks promoted the same effect of delayed retention of target lexical chunks.The present study proved that the Involvement Load Hypothesis theory can be partially applied into the incidental acquisition of English lexical chunks. In the teaching process, teachers can apply the Involvement Load Hypothesis theory into the English lexical chunks teaching. Also, teachers should choose some reading passages and intervention tasks to improve students’ incidental acquisition of English lexical chunks.