The effect of morphological form variation on adult first language incidental vocabulary acquisition through reading
English Teaching: Practice & Critique
ISSN: 1175-8708
Article publication date: 9 April 2019
Issue publication date: 13 June 2019
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the effects of word internal morphological form variation on adult first language (L1) (n = 20) incidental vocabulary acquisition through reading.
Design/methodology/approach
Participants were given a 37,611-token English novel containing pseudo words, placed throughout the text by the novelist. Two unexpected vocabulary assessments were administered at the completion of the reading task.
Findings
Results showed statistically significant effects for morphological form variation, with the readers having incidentally acquired more words whose tokens did not vary in form (i.e. no exposure to inflectional or derivational variants). However, a large effect size was present only for low-frequency words (two-four exposures).
Originality/value
Discussion of the results is given regarding the feasibility of enhancing adult L1 college readers’ morphological awareness through extensive reading and attention-drawing tasks.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The research reported in this article was supported by the University of Macau (MYRG2018-00008-FED).
Citation
Reynolds, B.L. (2019), "The effect of morphological form variation on adult first language incidental vocabulary acquisition through reading", English Teaching: Practice & Critique, Vol. 18 No. 1, pp. 36-51. https://doi.org/10.1108/ETPC-07-2018-0069
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited