Incidental vocabulary learning with subtitles in a new language: Orthographic markedness and number of exposures

Abstract

The present study is set to explore the way the orthographic distributional properties of novel written words and the number of exposures to these words affect their incidental learning in terms of recall and recognition. To that end, two experiments were conducted using videos with captions. These videos included written nonwords (orthographically marked language-specific items) and pseudowords (orthographically unmarked items) as captions paired to the spoken targets, presented either in isolation (Experiment 1) or within sentences (Experiment 2). Our results consistently show that items containing legal letter combinations (i.e., pseudowords) are better recalled and recognized than those with illegal combinations (i.e., nonwords). Further analysis in the recall task indicate that frequency modulates the learning of pseudowords and nonwords in a different way. The learning of pseudowords increases linearly with repetitions, while nonwords are equally learned across frequencies. These differential effects found in the recall task do not show up in the recognition task. Although participants took more time to recognize nonwords in the recognition task, increased exposure to the items similarly modulated reading times and accuracy for nonwords and pseudowords. Additionally, higher accuracy rates were found in Experiment 2, which underscores the beneficial effect of supportive visual information.

Effects of semantic clustering and repetition on incidental vocabulary learning

“…For the experiment, we used a repeated-measures design with Type of Item (semantically clustered|non-semantically clustered) and Number of Exposures (1|4|8) as within-subject factors. Following Pérez-Serrano et al (2021) , we intentionally created one video for this purpose, ensuring full control over the factors that could influence the results, such as the order of appearance of the targets, their particular linguistic features and the number of exposures to them. The soundtrack of the video consisted of 52 sentences in Spanish containing a total of 12 target words, as well as an opening and a closing sentence with no targets embedded.…”

“…The invented words were created using Wuggy ( Keuleers and Brysbaert, 2010 ). All of them were pronounceable in the L1 and contained legal combinations of letters in Spanish because previous literature has demonstrated that orthotactic markedness may affect the learning burden ( Pérez-Serrano et al, 2021 ).…”

“…The sentences contained objective information on the targets, such as “ The first motorcycle reached a speed of eighteen kilometers per hour .” The texts were transformed into speech using an online software and the resulting audio clips were included in the videos using commercial video editing software. The verbal content was accompanied by supporting related visual information depicting the target words mentioned, which appeared on screen during the utterance of each sentence (see also Pérez-Serrano et al, 2021 ). The captions of the video appeared in the lower part of the screen and displayed the entire utterance, replacing the target words with the corresponding pseudowords in capital letters (“ The first INA reached a speed of eighteen kilometers per hour ”).…”

“…Videos are considered an appropriate source of vocabulary learning since they provide both ecologically valid learning situations, as well as repeated encounters with low-frequency words through a relatively small amount of viewing ( Webb and Rodgers, 2009 ). Additionally, research has shown that vocabulary is better learned when learners are exposed to simultaneous channels of information, namely, the auditory discourse, the written captions, and the visual images ( Bisson et al, 2013 ; Rodgers, 2018 ; Pérez-Serrano et al, 2021 ).…”

“…Apart from the frequency of occurrence of the target items in the input, existing research recognizes the crucial role played by other critical factors in vocabulary growth. Vocabulary size ( Peters and Webb, 2018 ; Montero Perez, 2020 ) and working memory skills ( Montero Perez, 2020 ) are some of the learner-related factors with an influence on learning, while word relevance, cognateness ( Peters and Webb, 2018 ) and the orthotactic pattern of the words ( Pérez-Serrano et al, 2021 ) are some of the word-related factors that have been identified so far. However, there is one unexplored factor that is expected to modulate incidental vocabulary development and that has been consistently manipulated in educational contexts: the semantic relation between the target words presented in the input.…”