The Effects Of Gloss Position And Word Exposure Frequency On Incidental L2 Vocabulary Acquisition In Reading

Incidental vocabulary acquisition is one of the important ways to acquire vocabulary knowledge in text reading.Previous studies have generally confirmed that glosses and word exposure frequency exert active roles in incidental L2 vocabulary acquisition.However,the effects of gloss position and word exposure frequency on incidental L2 vocabulary acquisition are still questionable.The present study took the Input Hypothesis,the Depth of Processing Theory,and the Noticing Hypothesis as the theoretical framework to explore the effects of gloss position(interlinear glosses,marginal glosses)and word exposure frequency(1 time,3times,5 times)on incidental L2 vocabulary acquisition by discussing the following questions: 1)What are the effects of gloss position and word exposure frequency on immediate incidental L2 vocabulary acquisition? 2)What are the effects of gloss position and word exposure frequency on the retention of the incidentally acquired vocabulary? 3)What are the participants’ attitudes towards gloss position and word exposure frequency in text reading?The participants of the current study were 70 non-English majors whose CET-4scores were between 440 and 460 in a college in Zhengzhou.They were required to complete the reading comprehension questions,immediate vocabulary test,delayed vocabulary test and questionnaires.The results of the present study are as follows: 1)In the immediate vocabulary test,marginal glosses were more conducive to vocabulary acquisition than interlinear glosses.There is a positive correlation between test scores and word exposure frequency.When words occurred five times in marginal glosses group,the test scores were the best.2)In the delayed vocabulary test,the effect of marginal glosses was better than that of interlinear glosses.The participants performed better on words with higher exposure frequency.Under all conditions,the best retention effect on the vocabulary knowledge was words occurring five times in marginal glosses group.3)Most participants were aware that glosses and the word exposure frequency played an important role in incidental vocabulary acquisition.However,they had different attitudes towards gloss position.They preferred marginal glosses to interlinear glosses.Based on the findings,pedagogical implications are provided,and new ideas for the subsequent research on incidental L2 vocabulary acquisition are introduced.