| Vocabulary refers to the collection of all the words and fixed phrases of alanguage. It is one of the three elements that constitute language. Undoubtedly,vocabulary is the cornerstone of all language activities and plays a vital role in firstlanguage or second language learning. L1learners usually acquire vocabulary in avery natural way in the reading or listening activities for meaning-obtaining. Largeamounts of researches have revealed that most vocabulary is acquired unintentionallyin second language reading process. This is incidental vocabulary acquisition. Insecond-language incidental vocabulary acquisition process, learners take readingcomprehension as the main task, and vocabulary acquisition is only a by-productof learning.(Laufer&Hulstiji,2001) For a very long time, studies on second languagevocabulary acquisition haven’t been valued. It is not until1980s that the issues onsecond language’s vocabulary acquisition aroused the interests of researchers, andgradually become one of the spotlights in second language study field.(Huckin&Coady,1999; Laufer,2009; Paribakht&Wesche,1999) From then on, many scholarsworked on second language vocabulary acquisition studies and have presented manyof their findings. Krashen (1989) deemed that it is not necessary to learn vocabularydeliberately since that second language vocabulary can be acquired incidentally as theby-products while reading, just like the acquisition of mother tongue. From theperspective of teaching, this study way is very not only convenient but also efficientbecause reading comprehension and vocabulary acquisition can be done at the sametime.(Huckin&Coady,1999) From the viewpoint of cognition," Haynes (1993)found the reason for why reading can lead to incidental vocabulary acquisition lies inthe fact that context can improve learners’ ability of guessing word’s meaning andinducing learners to ‘deep process’ the vocabulary, so the memory is enhanced." (Guo&Zhou,2006:28)How to acquire second language’s vocabulary effectively has been a puzzle thatconcerned by both researchers and learners. Reading is the root for accumulatingvocabulary as well as the best way for native language speakers to acquire thelow-frequency vocabulary. Although the small probability of acquiring one newword’s meaning by meeting it once in reading, only about5%-14%,(Nagy,1997) oreven lower (Meara,1997).The large amount of rich context provides ample space foracquiring the word’s meaning and the combination of form-meaning, which makingthe gradual accumulation of vocabulary knowledge become possible. Studies onnative language have revealed that the vocabulary of adult native-English collegestudents mounts to20000word families (Nation,1990). By comparison, mostforeign language learners can’t match with the first language speakers in the readingamount for the limitation of surroundings and many other factors. As a result, therelative scarcity of the amount and the lack of rich context is bound to blockincidental vocabulary acquisition. The other obstacle usually comes from the learners’vocabulary level. Only learner themselves have obtained a certain amount ofvocabulary threshold and considerable vocabulary knowledge, can they gainvocabulary acquisition through reading (Laufer,1992).The contradiction of ‘twoamounts’ make it much more difficult for language learners to enlarge theirvocabulary through reading and even slower for them to acquire vocabularyknowledge by depending on the context.How to make reading an effective way for foreign language learners to improvetheir vocabulary level has been an issue worthy for future researchers to explore itin-depth. Currently, the way that domestic college students used for learning Englishvocabulary are very traditional and sole: relying on the teacher’s dull wordsexplanation in the classroom; or depending on intensively reciting vocabulary booksafter class. In the process of reciting words, some students even just recite the word’smeaning but do not know the word’s part of speech. The effect of this kind ofvocabulary learning is not so satisfactory. In general, these two kinds of vocabularylearning methods all get rid of the context so that can not help students apply words effectively. As a result,the Chinese college students have higher ability of passingexamination but poor at spoken language. Thus, the awkward situation of "dumbEnglish" is caused. Moreover, these two vocabulary learning methods are relativelydull and the learning effect is not so obvious. As a group with ample leisure time,college students should seek a different vocabulary learning way that can suit theirlanguage development. For instance, reading newspapers, magazines or the originalEnglish books with rich contexts. Dubin&Olshtain (1993) argue that extensivereading can exactly fill the gap because it can be done without the confinement ofconditions such as time, space or teachers. And the discourse of English readingmaterials can best lead to the contextual acquisition: collocation, reproducingthe conditions and the context of vocabulary (Zou&Zhou,2004).But extensivereading would take a lot of time, which is prone to cause the learners tired and weary.Moreover, taking advantage of the idle time to read itself would affect the effect ofacquisition. In addition, asking subjects to do reading outside of the classroom is easyto cause the experimental effect not ideal, since it is difficult for experimenters tomonitor the factors outside the experiment itself during the subjects’ reading process.To avoid these problems, the author tries to take advantage of classes to focus oninputting comprehensible intensive reading materials to subjects and to study theeffect of second language learners’ incidental vocabulary.Based on Krashen’s input hypothesis in second language acquisition theory, thisthesis aims to help Chinese ESL learners realize and master the skills of acquiringvocabulary by reading comprehensible materials. By investigating the IncidentalVocabulary Acquisition situation of14Chinese college ESL learners after reading thecomprehensible materials, the present study tries to answer the following twoquestions:1、How do the Chinese college English learners perform on Incidental VocabularyAcquisition in the ESL reading process?2、What is the extent of advancing and the rate of incidental acquisition ofvocabulary knowledge (including Chinese meaning and part of speech) after collegestudents receiving the input of comprehensible reading materials? This thesis goes with the basic way of theoretical analysis and investigation. Thetheoretical analysis includes the input hypothesis and the incidental vocabularyacquisition hypothesis. A vocabulary test adapted from the vocabulary knowledgescale (Paribakht&Wesche,1999) is used to test and evaluate the effects of subjects’mastery of target words in the reading materials. The detailed operations include theinvestigation into the familiarity of the target words, the comprehensible readingmaterial’s input under the guidance of input hypothesis and the vocabulary test. Theacquisition efficiency of target words’ Chinese meaning and part of speech in thereading context is showed by analyzing the data collected from the experiment. Theword-related features affecting the target word’s acquisition are also discussed. Thethesis’s focus is to apply the input hypothesis and the comprehensible readingmaterials to help students understand the rich language environment, strengthen theirimpressions to the concrete application of words, thus to enhance the quality andquantity of second language incidental vocabulary acquisition. Difficulties of doingthe research come from the selection of the subjects and the picking up ofcomprehensible reading material; the control of the target words in the experimentalprocess, the adoption of reasonable standard to evaluate the target word’s incidentalvocabulary acquisition, the mobilization of students’ enthusiasm; the collectionand analysis of the experimental data.The effect of second language incidental vocabulary acquisition is influenced bymany factors. This study tries to explore the effect of vocabulary acquisition, mainlyanalyzed from the target words’ part of speech and Chinese meaning, under thecondition of intensively inputting comprehensible material once only. This study canhelp students to recognize the impacts of comprehensible reading material onincidental vocabulary acquisition and provide guidance for them to select theappropriate, comprehensible and corresponding difficulty-degree material. Comparedwith the students under the age of high school, college students have goodsurroundings and gained sound conditions to practice incidental vocabularyacquisition: they have a lot of extracurricular learning practices, a wide range oflearning resources and their vocabulary has reached a certain amount, thus they can eliminate the outside interference. The results of the study show that second languagelearners can incidentally acquire word’s part knowledge (such as the part of speechand meaning of the target language) by inputting comprehensible materials once onlyin the second language reading activities. The result paves the way for studyingsecond language learner’s incidental vocabulary acquisition from the perspective ofinputting comprehensible reading materials. |
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