Abstract

This study investigated the effects of multiple textual encounters of words and textual encounters of words supplemented with pictorial glosses upon the ability of a learner of French to infer additional word senses—senses of target words that were not previously encountered. Twenty-nine participants were randomly divided into two groups, Groups A and B, and were subjected to two treatments, one in which the subjects encountered target words textually twice (Repeated Textual Encounters, RTE) and one in which the subjects encountered target words once textually and once pictorially (Pictorial Encounter, PE). Before the administration of the two vocabulary-learning treatments the participants completed a vocabulary pretest on the target words to establish a baseline of knowledge. At the conclusion of the vocabulary pretest, Group A read a French fairy tale encountering half of the target words using the RTE treatment while encountering the other half of the target words using the PE treatment. Although Group B read the same French fairy tale, they did not receive the same treatment for the same words. Specifically, the target words that those in Group A encountered using the RTE treatment were encountered by those in Group B using the PE treatment, and vise versa for the other treatment. Immediately following the treatments the participants completed a vocabulary recall test wherein the participants demonstrated their ability to infer additional senses of the target words in addition to recall original senses of target words as encountered in the text. Vocabulary gains were used as data to determine the participants' ability to infer additional word senses and recall original word senses. Results from t tests indicate that both treatments have a significant impact upon the learner's ability to infer additional word senses as well as recall original senses. Furthermore, results from analysis on the data gathered for individual words show that the treatments had a significant effect on learners inferring and recalling the senses of certain words over others. Results did not determine, however, which treatment was more effective than the other for learners to infer additional senses of words or to recall original word senses.

Degree

MA

College and Department

Humanities; Center for Language Studies

Rights

http://lib.byu.edu/about/copyright/

Date Submitted

2006-03-16

Document Type

Thesis

Handle

http://hdl.lib.byu.edu/1877/etd1215

Keywords

Second Language Acquisition (SLA), vocabulary development, French, textual encounters, pictorial glosses, visuals, inferring meaning, word senses

Language

English

Download

Share

COinS