Incidental Acquisition of Vocabulary by Reading 通过阅读偶然获得词汇.pdf

135 The Reading Matrix © 2011 Volume 11, Number 2, April 2011 Incidental Acquisition of Vocabulary by Reading R. Joseph Ponniah National Institute of Technology ABSTRACT This study examines the impact of reading on vocabulary development with adul t ESL students at the National Institute of Technology (Trichirappalli, India) . The researcher analyzes the performance of the s tudents who devoted their time to reading, and the students who learned consciously the meaning of words to develop their vocabulary knowledge. The results of the pre- and posttest confirm that readers were able to use the subconsciously acquired words in sentences, whereas the subjects who spent their time in learning dictionary meaning of words really could not use the learned words in sentences. INTRODUCTION It is well established that reading is a powerful source for the acquisition of vocabulary in a second language context, but more than that, it is hypothesized that reading, with no explicit vocabulary learning, can result in incidental vocabulary development (Day, Omura, Hiramatsu, 1991; Krashen, 2004; Lehmann, 2007; Lee Hsu, 2009; Ponniah, 2009). Every time readers read unfamiliar words they acquire at least partial meanings, and repeated exposure to such words will result in a considerable amount of vocabulary development. This is, of course, incidental learning. Readers acquire vocabulary when they focus on the meaning of the text they read, and not when focusing on unknown words. This process is subconscious—readers do not know that they acquire vocabulary while they read, but, in fact, they sub