Effects Of Word Exposure Frequency On Advanced English Learners’ Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition

If language structures make up the skeleton of language, then it is vocabulary that provides the vital organs and the flesh (Harmer,1991). Since the mid 1980s there has been a renewed interest in the role of vocabulary in L2 learning. Most scholars seem to agree that vocabulary learning predominantly occurs through extensive reading, with the learner guessing at the meaning of unknown words. This type of word acquisition is differentiated from intentional word recitation for its incidental nature that is often described as a by-product of another activity. Incidental vocabulary acquisition (IVA) is a complex psychological process, into which many prior L2 researchers have probed from various angles.This thesis empirically explores the effect of word exposure frequency in a text on Chinese EFL learners’ incidental vocabulary acquisition from three aspects:orthography, word class and meaning. Four tests were designed to examine students’ word gains in the three aspects of word knowledge:they are word form recognition, word class recall, word meaning recognition and word meaning recall. The target words were 20 pseudo-words which were created to replace the original words naturally occurring 1-20 times respectively in the text.20 postgraduate English-majors in Nanjing University participated in the one-on-one experiment, after which interviews were followed. A delayed test on word meaning recall was administered one week later. Evidence for the effect of word exposure frequency was sought in comparing the word gains among different frequency levels using SPSS 16.0 and in analyzing both quantitative and qualitative results. The major findings of this thesis are as follows:First, for all word knowledge aspects, there was measurable learning in 9.16 out of the 20 target words. The mean scores for the four tests went by the following order: Word Form Recognition (2.115), Word Class Recall (1.956), Word Meaning Recognition (1.804), and Word Meaning Recall (1.488).Second, word exposure frequency did have a significant positive effect on IVA through reading on each aspect of word knowledge measured. One exposure did not result in word meaning acquisition. Word frequency had greatest influence over word class recall. There were no significant differences in general word gains among the frequency groups of 7-10,11-15 and 16-20 occurrences. Words exposed 7 times or more were better acquired than those repeated less than 7 times in all four word tests, and words exposed 16 times or more were better acquired than those repeated 7-15 times in word form and word class tests.Third, students could recall the meanings of 22% of the target words one week after the experiment. The delayed posttest meaning recall scores were significantly lower than those in the immediate test except for the frequency group of 7-10 occurrences, which did not show significant loss of knowledge on word meaning. High frequency may not guarantee long-term memories of word meaning, and words exposed 7-10 times in a text were best retained after one week.Based on the results, implications for vocabulary learning are proposed. Chinese postgraduate English majors can resort to authentic novels as a vehicle for the accumulation of words. Exposure frequency helps IVA mainly through increasing the chances for a new word to be noticed and processed, rather than through the mere repetition of words. Therefore, reading with attention on both text and word level is an effective way of improving the breadth and depth of word acquisition.