| Recently,incidental vocabulary acquisition(IVA)has been hotly discussed,and studies on factors which affect learners' IVA are very common.However,the number of studies which are regarded reading purpose as an affecting factor in IVA is very limited.There is no a unified standard for the definition of reading purpose,and some studies confused reading purpose with task types.Besides,the measuring instruments,which are used to measure the effects of IVA and its retention,were also not accurate enough.Most of existing research investigate the relationship between IVA and reading purpose in a quantitative way,and it is rare to investigate that in a qualitative way.As a reflection of motivation,reading purpose can adjust learners' behavior in the process of reading.Whether learners can incidentally acquire words when they read for different purpose is closely related to their motivation.Hence,based on the motivation theory,the current study attempts to explore the effects of two different reading purposes(reading for passing examination and reading for interest)on learners' IVA and its retention in both quantitative and qualitative way,and it also tries to answer the following three questions:(1)What are the effects of different reading purposes on the learners' IVA and its retention?(2)For learners with different reading proficiency,how do reading purposes affect their IVA and its retention?(3)Does the same reading purpose have different effects on IVA and its retention of learners with different reading proficiency?If yes,why?The current experiment lasts for two months,involving 114 freshmen from three natural classes in a normal university,and all these students are non-English majors.Three groups of students read for passing examination(exam group),for interest(interest group)and without specific purpose(no purpose group)respectively.According to the willing of subjects from interest group,the author selects an article as the experimental reading material and selects 15 target words through the pilot experiment.Meanwhile,all three groups respectively take the reading proficiency test,the immediate and the delayed post-test in sequence.Among those,the no purpose group is not informed of any requirements when reading the target material.The exam group is told that they will be tested after finishing reading,and they are also informed that the scores of tests are related to their final scores.The interest group conducts a topic-related group discussion before reading the materials to ensure that all of them are more interested in the reading materials.What's more,students in the exam and interest groups are asked to take the motivation test.After all the tests are completed,the author selects some students to conduct interviews to understand their views on the relationship between reading purpose and IVA.Data analysis yields the following findings:(1)When learners read for passing examination,the results of IVA are better than they read for interest.However,there is no significant difference between reading for passing examination and reading for interest in terms of IVA retention;(2)For learners in both higher and lower reading proficiency group,reading for passing examination is significantly better than reading for interest in IVA,but the reasons for this result are different;(3)With the same reading purpose,there is significant difference on learners' IVA and its retention.It is learners' motivation difference that leads to the different effects of IVA and its retention.Among these,external motivation and self-efficacy have strong influence on the learners' IVA and its retention in reading,while the effects of internal motivation are insufficient.Based on those conclusions,the author gives some practical suggestions on vocabulary teaching,and puts forward the limitations of the current study in order to provide new ideas for future studies. |
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