No abstract

The study examines the impact of topic familiarity, second language (L2) reading proficiency, and L2 passage sight vocabulary on incidental vocabulary acquisition. Independent variables include (a) a topic familiarity questionnaire, (b) the Adult Basic Learning Examination, Spanish Battery(Karlsen & Gardner, 1990), and (c) a passage sight vocabulary test. A repeated‐measures design was used with a cross‐sectional sample. Participants read narratives (2 more and 2 less familiar) containing nonsense words. Two and 28 days after reading, 2 gain measures were administered: (a) translation production and (b) translation recognition. Analyses reveal robust effects of reading proficiency, differential effects of topic familiarity, and isolated effects of passage sight vocabulary. The discussion concerns the impact of these factors and plausibility of interactive compensatory processing.

The study examines the relationship between second language (L2) passage comprehension and intake (form recognition), gain (meaning recognition and production), and retention of new lexical items from the passages. The effect of topic familiarity on the above relationships is also examined. Participants were a cross-sectional sample of L2 learners. All participants read more and less familiar scriptbased narratives containing nonsense words. After reading they performed a free-written recall in their first language. Two days after reading, an intake and 2 gain measures were administered. Twenty-eight days after reading, the 2 gain measures were repeated. Analyses reveal a generally robust consistent role of passage comprehension in lexical gain and retention, but differential patterns of relationships in intake due to effects of topic familiarity.

This study investigated the impact of topic interest, alongside L2 proficiency and gender, on L2 vocabulary acquisition through reading. A repeated-measures design was used with 135 Korean EFL students. Control variables included topic familiarity, prior target-word knowledge, and target-word difficulty (word length, class, and concreteness). Participants read both high- and low-interest topic passages and took vocabulary posttests (word-form recognition, translation recognition, and translation production) immediately and four weeks after reading. Analyses revealed significant effects of topic interest and L2 proficiency, and a significant interaction between topic interest and gender. These results were maintained over time. The article concludes by discussing the facilitative role of topic interest, expanding on the motivational factor considered in the involvement load hypothesis.

The study reported in this article describes second language (L2) vocabulary learning outcomes associated with adult L2 reading comprehension processes, thus connecting L2 learning with the complex cognitive and linguistic processing involved in reading. The study aimed to determine whether background knowledge moderated the relationship between passage comprehension and lexical input processing outcomes, such as intake and receptive gain and retention of target‐word meanings. The primary theoretical contribution concerns the nature of the relationships that obtained between passage comprehension and lexical input processing. Overall, the results suggest that as learners become more efficient in engaging in the various processing activities required during L2 reading, they experience greater memory for linguistic elements encountered during reading, such as orthographic forms and semantic aspects of new lexical items. The results support connectionist models of L2 reading and conclusions concerning efficiency in lower level text processing (e.g., see Koda, 2005; Nassaji, 2002). Reading is a complex cognitive activity, involving simultaneous linguistic processing such as pattern recognition, letter identification, lexical access, concept activation, syntactic analysis, propositional encoding, sentence comprehension, and intersentence integration, as well as the activation of prior knowledge, information storage, and comprehension monitoring. The prior knowledge that is accessed is largely determined by the quality of the textbase that is constructed during reading, which is affected by the individual's efficiency in carrying out the various text‐processing operations listed above. The finding that background knowledge did not moderate the relationship between comprehension and receptive retention of meaning provides further support for the robust role of text‐processing efficiency in bootstrapping processes, such as those involved in mapping new linguistic forms to familiar concepts already stored in memory. The secondary finding with regard to intake of the target words corroborates the main finding, demonstrating that efficient text processing skills are also essential to other aspects of lexical input processing, such as establishing and retrieving the connections between new linguistic forms and the specific contexts in which they were encountered. The study also expands upon previous reading and research in the area of methodological innovations applied to incidental learning research paradigms, for instance, by measuring intake and episodic memory and the relationships between text processing and language learning outcomes. In addition, through the concurrent investigation of the impact of several factors on lexical input processing, the study sets the stage for more complex modeling of the processes that contribute to L2 development.