Most language learning starts from vocabulary acquisition for “a well-developed
vocabulary is a prerequisite for fluent reading, a critical link between decoding and comprehension (Joshi, 2005).” It was estimated that learners need around 3000-5000
word families to comprehend general texts (Goulden et al., 1990) without too much
difficulty. However, in regular junior high schools in Taiwan, students only need to
learn 1200 words to cope with the high school entrance exam. The gap between the
two numbers leads to English reading difficulties for young learners in Taiwan.
Teachers often need to modify the original texts into simplified version in order to fit learners’ limited vocabulary size and thus reduce the authenticity of the reading
materials. Realizing students’ vocabulary deficiency and not willing to give them
additional pressure and burden, many researchers started to investigate the function
and advantages of incidental learning.
Krashen(1989) may be the most well-known proponent who promotes L2
incidental vocabulary acquisition through extensive reading. Influenced by the
incidental vocabulary learning hypothesis (Nagy & Herman, 1985) which indicated
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readers could acquire new words when they received repeated exposure in the reading
texts, Krashen believes that readers can also acquire L2 vocabulary and improve their
spelling with sufficient comprehensible input in extensive reading. With this belief in
mind, Krashen (2000) examined the impact of popular literature on literacy
development of college students in Hong Kong. Readers were able to choose what they
liked to read and read for pleasure instead of learning. The result showed that these
students made great progress on vocabulary and reading rate compared with the
students receiving regular course. Similar results appearing in many other similar
studies (Hermann, 2003; Hunt & Beglar, 2005; Pigada & Schmitt, 2006) demonstrated
the fact that L2 vocabulary acquisition is likely to be accomplished through extensive
or pleasure reading.
Besides paper-based reading activities, with the rise of computer assisted
language learning (CALL), computer-related learning resources have joined the field
of L2 learning. Altogether with paper and computer-based reading materials,
researchers discovered some different results with different vocabulary presentations.
In the regular paper-based reading texts, words are often presented in the linear
order and with a similar size. However, in order to catch players’ attention and
increase their motivation, linguistic items often appear in various and colorful ways in
different video games. From the traditional reading materials, it is proved that words
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with certain presentation ways may have the privilege in vocabulary acquisition.
Therefore, the present study will try to find out whether different ways of word
presentations in video games will also influence the outcome of vocabulary acquisition.
The following sections will probe into the two most common variables which may
influence incidental vocabulary learning: word repetition and picture glosses.
2.3.1 The impact of word repetition on L2 incidental vocabulary acquisition
There is no consensus on how many encounters of a new word will guarantee
acquisition. However, many researchers believe that the exposure times of unknown
words may have an influence on acquisition (Saragi et al., 1978; Jenkins et al., 1984).
Jenkins et al. (1984) proposed that the increase of word exposure would enhance the
word acquisition. Words that appeared 10 times in context were acquired more easily
than words that showed up twice. Saragi et al. (1978) also suggested that ten or more
than ten word encounters would bring out the significant vocabulary gains. Horst et al.
(1998) suggested eight or more times; Waring and Takaki (2003) stated more than
twenty times and Rott (1999) gave a slightly smaller number, 6 times. No matter how
many encounters these researchers came with, there seemed to be a positive
relationship between the number of word encounter and the vocabulary gains.
Webb (2007) examined the effect of word repetition on word knowledge with 10
different measurements, including orthography, association, grammatical functions,
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syntax, and meaning and form. The results showed that at least one aspect of word
knowledge increased when the number of word encounter increased. Moreover, if
learners ran into a word more than 10 times, significant gains were obtained.
Even though researchers have distinctive opinions on the effect of word encounter
times, there seems to be a positive correlation between the encounter times and the
participants’ performance on vocabulary acquisition. Therefore, the present study tries
to reexamine whether this phenomena stays true in different learning environments.
Since former studies mainly adopted paper-based materials, this study attempts to
investigate if word repetition has the same influence on vocabulary acquisition when
using video games as learning materials.
2.3.2 The impact of picture glosses on L2 incidental vocabulary learning
The above section explains that word repetition may be crucial for vocabulary
acquisition, but there are still other factors which may influence L2 vocabulary
acquisition, for example the meaningfulness of contexts, degree of similarity between
L1 and L2 (Saragi et al., 1978), the ability to guess word meanings (Jenkins et al.,
1989), learners’ attention (Hulstijn et al., 1996), and pictures in the book and part of
speech of the target words (Horst et al., 1998). Among these factors, Horst et al. (1998)
suggested that pictures in the book may affect the vocabulary gain. With the
penetration of multimedia in language learning programs, pictures, one of the
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multimedia learning aids, have been under investigation to examine its effect on L2
incidental vocabulary acquisition.
Chun and Plass (1996) and Plass, et al. (1998) tested the impact of different
glosses on vocabulary acquisition and found that the combination of text explanation
and pictorial glosses helped students remember more new words. The same outcome
also appeared in the study conducted by Kost et al. (1999) and Yoshii and Flaitz
(2002). Nonetheless, there were studies leading to different results. Yanguas (2009)
reported that no significant differences were found among groups using different
multimedia glosses, including text, pictorial, and the combination of the two when
producing the target vocabulary. The results in these studies showed that picture
glosses would have best effects when they were in combination with text explanations.
Secondly, in some cases, pictures would not show advantages in the process of
vocabulary acquisition. The contradictory findings revealed that there is still no
consensus that whether picture glosses will guarantee better vocabulary acquisition.
Moreover, studies regarding multimedia glosses focused mostly in reading activities
using paper-based or computer-based materials, and few of them incorporated video,
computer or online games. In the game environment, vocabulary items seldom appear
with a text explanation. They usually shop up with a picture. Therefore the present
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study will examine whether pictorial glosses alone in the video game can also help
improve vocabulary gains.