2017年12月7日下午，英国诺丁汉大学Walter van Heuven副教授受邀作了题为“外语词汇的附带习得”的演讲。
他首先指出，字幕作为一种信息丰富的资源，在词汇习得研究中有其独特的优势：1）如今四处可见带字幕的电影、视频及电视节目；2）这些多模态视频片段同时具有音轨（听觉）、字幕（视觉）及画面（视觉）信息。研究者能够通过调整音轨及字幕中的语言信息来适应不同水平的学习者。具体来说，有三种音轨和字幕的搭配：1）标准做法，音轨外语、字幕母语；2）语言内字幕，音轨、字幕为同种语言；3）相反情况，音轨母语、字幕外语。过去30年间，已有很多研究发现了语言内字幕对于外语学习及教学的影响，然而这些研究缺乏元分析方法及语言后测，产生影响的基本机制也还不清楚。针对这些问题，van Heuven教授使用了眼动追踪技术，发现被试能够在加工不同条件字幕（标准、反向及语言间）的同时，学习外语词汇。讲座的后半部分他进一步介绍了多模态情况下的外语词汇附带习得。无论是在图片、口头词语还是书面词语的输入中，都存在着附带的学习效应。这一效应只需要被试无意识地接触几次实验材料就能够产生，并且持续一段时间。该效应最初在使用威尔士语的研究中被发现，随后在关于韩语、希腊语的研究中得到进一步证实。
在问答环节，van Heuven教授与提问者充分讨论了词汇附带习得研究发现的教学应用及进一步的研究方向。
Prof. van Heuven from University of Nottingham delivered a lecture on incidental acquisition of foreign language vocabulary on the afternoon of Dec. 7th, 2017.
He hThHe first introduced the audience to theadvantages of subtitles as an information-rich resource for vocabulary acquisition studies. Subtitled films, videos and programs were easily available and constituted a multi-modal situation with sound track (auditory modality), subtitles (visual modality) and dynamic images (visual modality). Researchers could vary the language in the soundtrack and subtitles to suit different levels of learners. There were three variations concerning the matching of the soundtrack and subtitles: 1) the standard one with foreign language as the soundtrack and native language as subtitles; 2) intralingual/(closed) captions with same language for the soundtrack and subtitles; 3) the reversed conditionwith native language as the soundtrack and foreign language as subtitles. Although a large number of studies in the last 30 years had found the impact of captions (intralingual subtitles) on foreign language learning and teaching, there were few studies using meta-anlaysis and delayed post-tests. The underlying mechanism of the impact remained unclear. Addressing these problems, Prof. van Heuven used eye tracking technique and found that subjects processed subtitles under different subtitling conditions (standard, reversed and intralingual) and foreign language vocabulary learning occurred during the process. In the second part of the lecture, he continued to present a series of experiments that investigated incidental learning of foreign language vocabulary in a multi-modal situation. Processing of the foreign language multi-model inputs (pictures, spoken words and written words) resulted in an incidental learning effect. This incidental learning advantage happened with a small number of exposures and could remain after a time delay. The incidental learning effect was originally observed in a study using Welsh and later replicated in Korean and Greek studies.
During the Q & Asession. Prof. van Heuven discussed at length with the audience the pedagogic application of the incidental word learning findings and directions for future studies.
