‘Effects of’ and ‘effects with’ captions: How exactly does watching a TV programme with same-language subtitles make a difference to language learners?

Abstract

Ever since Karen Price's ground-breaking work in 1983, we have known that same-language subtitles (captions) primarily intended for the deaf and hearing-impaired can provide access to foreign language films and TV programmes which would otherwise be virtually incomprehensible to non-native-speaker viewers. Since then, researchers have steadily built up our knowledge of how learners may make use of these when watching.The question remains, however, whether, and to what extent, watching subtitled programmes over time helps develop learners’ language skills in various ways. Perhaps surprisingly, this question of long-term language development has still not been fully addressed in the research literature and we appear to be in a largely ‘confirmatory’ cycle. At an informal level, on the other hand, there are countless stories of learners who have been assisted in learning a foreign language by watching subtitled or captioned films and television.I shall review the contributions of key research studies to build up a picture of the current state of our knowledge and go on to outline, first, the current gaps in research and, second, some encouraging new approaches to learning by autonomous ‘users’ of foreign-language Internet media and same-language subtitles across languages, now more widely available.

The Effect of Imagery and On‐Screen Text on Foreign Language Vocabulary Learning From Audiovisual Input

“…Finally. captioned audiovisual input has the advantage that it also provides language learners with the written form of words, which might help learners decode the rapid speech of audiovisual input (Vanderplank, ). The present study adds to the growing body of evidence that captions are indeed useful for learning vocabulary.…”

Measuring cognitive load in the presence of educational video: Towards a multimodal methodology

“…They also point out that subtitles allow the integration of reading and listening skills, something that is invaluable for students studying in a second language. The work of Vanderplank (2013) in particular points to the benefits of subtitling in a context where students are confronted with challenging auditory input. He found that SLS increase comprehension particularly because they neutralise accents and dialects (a problem, for instance, in educational contexts such as higher education where many lecturers and speakers in supplementary videos have accents that may be unfamiliar to students), and also foregrounds unfamiliar phrases and words, such as new concepts and terminology as well as everyday expressions.…”

“…Further issues of "weak research design" (Vanderplank, 2013;p. 6) and reliance on pseudo-experimental approaches have limited the application of subtitling in educational contexts.…”

Constructing Learning Results as Learning Object Through Open Learning System

“…Generally learners only have the ability to use only or even just have the ability to watch it (Vanderplank, 2016). Although this is an ironic condition, almost all universities have weak student problems in information management.…”