The Effects Of Reading Tasks With Same Involvement Load On English Majors’ Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition

Since Nagy et al.proposed incidental vocabulary acquisition(IVA),linguists began to explore effective ways of incidental vocabulary acquisition.Laufer and Hulstijn proposed the Involvement Load Hypothesis based on previous studies,arguing that task-induced involvement consists of need,search,and evaluation.And the sum of the intensities of these three factors constitutes the total involvement load.In recent years,most of the related studies have focused on the relationship between different-involvement-load tasks and IVA,and the results were not consistent.There were relatively few studies on the relationship between same-involvement-load tasks with different components and IVA.Based on the Involvement Load Hypothesis,107 English majors from a university in Jiangsu province were selected as the research subjects.They were divided into two experimental groups,and the subjects in each experimental group were further divided into high and low levels according to their TEM-4 scores.Two after-reading tasks(translation task and composition writing task)that have same-involvement-load but different components were assigned to the two experimental groups randomly.And the Vocabulary Knowledge Scale(VKS)was used as the test tool for immediate and one-week delayed vocabulary tests to test the incidental acquisition of ten target words involved in the reading tasks.The research questions are as follows:(1)What are the effects of same-involvement-load tasks with different components on English majors’ IVA?(2)What are the influences of same-involvement-load tasks with different components on IVA of students at different English levels?The findings are as follows:(1)Same-involvement-load tasks with different components had different effects on incidental vocabulary acquisition.In the immediate vocabulary test,there was no significant difference in the effect of the two same-involvement-load tasks with different components on incidental vocabulary acquisition.However,in the one-week delayed vocabulary test,the composition writing task was significantly more effective for incidental vocabulary acquisition than the translation task.(2)These two same-involvement-load tasks with different components had different effects on incidental vocabulary acquisition of students at different English levels.For high-level students,no significant differences were found between the two same-involvement-load tasks.In other words,both the translation task and the writing task were effective in promoting high-level students’ incidental vocabulary acquisition,and the promotion effects were comparable.For low-level students,no significant difference was found between the two same-involvement-load tasks in the immediate vocabulary test,while the writing task was found to be significantly more effective than the translation task in the delayed vocabulary test.In other words,the writing task had a better effect on low-level students’ incidental vocabulary acquisition.This study explores the effects of same-involvement-load tasks with different components on incidental vocabulary acquisition.On one hand,the results of this study provide a sample study for the Involvement Load Hypothesis.On the other hand,it can provide useful implications for English vocabulary teaching.