| Vocabulary, an indispensable part of language, has long been a focus in the EFL learning. Many researchers have done numerous experiments and studies on L2 vocabulary acquisition by reading task, writing task and other tasks. However, a purely incidental learning situation is time-consuming, and the increase of incidental vocabulary is quite slow. The main reason for this is that learners do these tasks mainly to increase other abilities such as reading or writing abilities rather than to learn some words. However, it is also suggested in the previous studies that incidental learning can encourage better long-term lexical retention than intentional learning simply because the former can provide a certain context. Considering time and context, Francois Pichetted et al.(2012) first designed sentence reading task to study the effect on L2 lexical acquisition, since it was shorter than a text, but longer enough to provide some contextual information. On the other hand, studies on whether sentence writing task can facilitate the learning of new words are still controversial. In addition, studies on the concreteness effect are mainly on psycholinguistics and SLA, and among which, few studies focus upon the effect of reading and writing tasks. Therefore, this present study attempts a comparative experiment to investigate the effect of task type with different involvement load and word meaning concreteness on L2 incidental vocabulary acquisition.The study adopts a 2×2 mixed design in which type of learning tasks(sentence reading task and sentence writing task) is set as a between-subjects variable and types of word(concrete words and abstract words) as a within-subjects variable. And dependent variables include both immediate vocabulary gain and word retention. Participants were 63 freshmen majoring in English. Each participant first completed the pretest on vocabulary knowledge scale proposed by Paribakht and Wesche(1993). After the pre-test, subjects were instructed to do the vocabulary learning tasks. All of the subjects were assigned randomly to participate in only one of the two learning tasks to learn 16 target words, among which half were semantically abstract and half were concrete. The order of presentation of the items was randomized to avoid sequence effects. The recall test was given to each participant individually almost immediately after he or she completed the tasks. The same test was administered a week later in order to measure longer term recall.Analysis of the data obtained in the study suggests the following results. Firstly, reading and writing tasks had differential impacts upon vocabulary acquisition of intermediate Chinese learners of English. And more precisely, students participating in the sentence writing task performed significantly better than those in the sentence reading task. Secondly, concreteness of word meaning had an impact upon vocabulary acquisition of intermediate Chinese learners of English. And more precisely, observed recall of concrete words in immediate posttest was superior to that of abstract words for subjects participating either in sentence reading task or in sentence writing task. And finally, the effect of the task type holds a longer time than that of meaning concreteness.The implications to be inferred, first of all, are that the involvement load makes a difference in the acquisition of L2 vocabulary, in terms of both word form and meaning. It is advisable, therefore, for the students to resort to tasks inducing strong involvement load like writing sentences or writing passages rather than just reading sentences or passages. In addition, the effect of meaning concreteness highlights the fact that word complexity is another factor which influences the involvement load in L2 vocabulary acquisition. |
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