The Effect Of Subject Familiarity On Second Language Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition Through Reading

The present research investigates the effect of subject familiarity on second language (L2) incidental vocabulary acquisition and retention through reading. The reader schemata and lexical inferencing involved in L2 vocabulary acquisition through reading are observed accordingly. The three research questions to be addressed in this study are: (a) Do intermediate Chinese learners of English acquire and retain vocabulary incidentally through reading? (b) Does subject familiarity have an effect on incidental acquisition and retention of vocabulary by Chinese learners? and (c) How could the observed result of L2 incidental vocabulary acquisition and retention through reading be best described and interpreted? Or what seems to be the pattern of L2 incidental vocabulary acquisition and retention through reading?In order to explore the answers to those questions, an empirical study was conducted to gather information on L2 incidental vocabulary acquisition and retention through reading. Participants read two expositions (one more and one less familiar) containing nonsense words. Immediately after reading and 2 months later, two vocabulary gain measures were administered: translation production and translation recognition.Results indicate that there is a statistically significant effect of subject familiarity on L2 incidental vocabulary acquisition and retention through reading in the translation recognition task in terms of scores, which shows that Chinese participants in the study turn to their background information to comprehend passages and infer lexical meaning. However, in the translation production task, subject familiarity does not play a significant role and the word gain is rather low. The quantitative and qualitative results, to a great extent, complement each other in the fact that they both provide evidence to confirm the fundamental hypothesisof the present research that there exist subject familiarity constraints on L2 incidental vocabulary acquisition and retention through reading since the cognitive process of reading comprehension and making form-meaning connections for new lexical items is governed by the reader's content schemata.In the end, findings are discussed and implications for teaching and learning L2 vocabulary are examined. And recommendations for future research on the related issues are also proposed.