Ana Pellicer-Sánchez holds talk on 'Incidental vocabulary learning from reading' at the University of Essex

Ana Pellicer-Sánchez holds a talk entitled 'Incidental vocabulary learning from reading: Evidence from eye-tracking' at the Department of Language and Linguistics, University of Essex on Thursday, 22 January.

Abstract:
Reading is an important source of second language (L2) vocabulary learning. Previous studies have shown that new vocabulary can be learnt incidentally from reading. However, these previous studies used off-line measures in the form of post-reading tests. Although still informative of the quantity and quality of vocabulary learnt from reading, these measures do not tell us much about what is happening when readers encounter unknown words while reading. Using online (eye-tracking) measures we can now examine the online reading of unknown lexical items. This presentation will report results of a study which combined off-line (vocabulary tests) and online (eye-tracking) measures to examine the incidental acquisition of vocabulary knowledge from L1 and L2 reading and the online reading of unknown lexical items. This combination of measures provides a fuller account of the process of L1 and L2 reading, expanding our knowledge of the incidental learning of new words from reading.