The Effect Of Lexical Elaboration And Textual Enhancement On Incidental Acquisition Of Second Language Collocations In Reading

This study investigated the effects of lexical elaboration,textual enhancement and their combination on the incidental acquisition of second language(L2)collocation by104 Chinese high school freshmen with different English proficiency.Participants were exposed to 15 low-frequency target items(TI)by reading one of four versions of an experimental text containing these items.A lexically elaborated text had all TIs immediately followed by which means plus an explanation.A textual enhanced text contained all TIs set in bold face in order to increase perceptual salience.With the original passages,there are four versions of reading passages: baseline version,lexical elaborated version(LE),textual enhanced version(TE),both lexical elaborated and textual enhanced version(LE+TE).104 participants with 52 at high proficiency level and 52 at low proficiency level were divided into four groups: one control group and three experimental groups,which were homogenous.Each group only read one version of each of the four texts throughout the reading test.The baseline version was read by the control group,whereas the LE,TE,and LE+TE versions were read by the three experimental groups.The analyses of the data reveal three major findings: 1)Lexical elaboration and the combination of textual enhancement and lexical elaboration facilitated students’ incidental acquisition of TIs,compared with the baseline version.2)Among high proficiency students,there were no significant differences between the three modified versions and the baseline version.However,among low proficiency students,all three intervention means promoted their incidental acquisition,especially in the LE+TE group,which had a very significant advantage.3)There was an interaction effect of intervention means and students’ English proficiency level on their incidental acquisition.