Beyond a Clockwork Orange: Acquiring second language vocabulary through reading (1998)

Horst, M., Cobb, T., & Meara, P. (1998). Beyond a Clockwork Orange: Acquiring second language vocabulary through reading. Reading in a Foreign Language, 11(2), 207-223.

Artículo AQUÍ

ABSTRACT

This replication study demonstrates that second language learners recognized the meanings of new words and built associations between them as a result of comprehension-focused extensive reading. A carefully controlled book-length reading treatment resulted in more incidental word learning and a higher pick-up rate than previous studies with shorter tasks. The longer text also made it possible to explain incidental learning growth in terms of frequency of occurrence of words in the text. But the general frequency of a word was not found to make the word more learnable. Findings also suggested that subjects with larger L2 vocabulary sizes had greater incidental word learning gains. Implications for incidental acquisition as a strategy for vocabulary growth are discussed.