Reconstructing Vocabulary Knowledge Through Incidental Learning

整个研究的目的是调查是否有一些已经知道的单词是偶然通过阅读习得的。为了实现这一目标，我在2009年进行了初步的研究。也就是说，使用学习者已知的单词（即学习者至少知道每个单词的一个意思），我检查了日本大学生对这些单词的了解程度。我在JACET8000中选择了属于1级的单词，我也检查了这些单词有不止一个意思。本初步研究的结果表明，无论学生的词汇量大小（学习者认识3000个以上的单词还是学习者只认识2000个单词），他们对核心意义的认识都要优于非核心意义。此外，估计词汇量、核心意义知识和非核心意义知识之间的相关系数表明，三者之间均存在显著相关，但估计词汇量与非核心意义知识之间的偏相关系数不显著。这些结果并不表明拥有更多的词汇量与了解单词知识的多个含义之间存在很强的关系。然而，本研究的不足之处在于参与者对目标单词的认识程度差异很大。因此，本研究的结果表明，在详细研究偶然学习的效果之前，有必要对熟识词的机制进行研究。基于以上结果，我进行了另一项研究。我选择了四个核心意义和非核心意义上都有两个或两个以上日语翻译词的单词。我还检查了这些日语翻译词的相关性，比较了意义类型（核心还是非核心）和相关性哪个对学习者的知识影响更大。结果表明，核心性对学习者的词汇知识有影响，而相关性对学习者的词汇知识没有影响。因此，核心意义比非核心意义更容易获得，这与认知语言学家所声称的一致。接下来，我根据上述结果进行了另一项研究。重点是核心意义和非核心意义，我研究了日本英语学习者在知道核心意义而不知道非核心意义时是如何解释目标单词的。我已经收集了数据，但还在分析中。少

The purpose of the whole research is to investigate whether some aspects of already-known words are incidentally learnt through reading. In order to achieve this goal, I conducted a preliminary research in 2009. That is, using known words to learners (i.e., learners know at least one meaning of each word), I checked to what degree Japanese university students have knowledge about those words. I selected words belonging to level 1 in JACET8000, and I also check these words have more than one meanings. The results of this preliminary research suggested that regardless of students' vocabulary sizes (learners knowing more than 3000 words or learners knowing about only 2000 words), they know core meanings better than non-core meanings. Furthermore, correlation coefficients between the estimated vocabulary size, the knowledge about core meaning, and the knowledge about non-core meaning suggested that all of them had significant correlations, but the partial correlation coefficients between t … More he estimated vocabulary size and the knowledge about non-core meaning was not significant. These results do not indicate strong relationship between having more vocabulary size and knowing more than one meaning of word knowledge. However, the shortcoming of this study is that the degree of knowing the target words differed greatly between the participants. Hence, the results of this research suggest the necessity of conducting research about the mechanism of known words before investigating the effect of incidental learning in detail.Based on the results above, I conducted another study. I selected four words that have two or more Japanese translation words both in core meanings and non-core meanings. I also checked the relatedness of these Japanese translation words, and compared which affected the learners' knowledge more, the types of meaning (core or non-core) or the relatedness. The results showed that coreness affected the learners' vocabulary knowledge, but the relatedness did not. Hence, core meanings are more easily acquired than non-core meanings, which is along the line with what the cognitive linguists have been claiming.Next, I conducted another study based on the above results. Focus was on the core and non-core meaning, and I examined how Japanese EFL learners interpreted the target words, when they knew the core meaning but did not know the non-core meaning. I have already collected the data, but it is still under analysis. Less