Type and token frequency of conventional linguistic units in Extensive Graded Reading

Authors

  • Kunitaro Mizuno Edogawa University

Keywords:

graded readers, extensive graded reading, incidental vocabulary learning from reading, usage-based model, conventional linguistic units

Abstract

Previous studies on incidental vocabulary learning from reading were based on the idea of repetition (e.g., Horst, 2005; Pigada & Schmitt, 2006; Waring & Takaki, 2003; Webb, Newton, & Chang, 2013) which has its roots in the comprehensible input hypothesis (Krashen, 1985). This study demystifies the fundamental idea of repetition in terms of learning conventional linguistic units (Langacker, 2008) from extensive graded reading (EGR). In order to explore the frequency effects of conventional linguistic units in EGR, a corpus of 60 graded readers was constructed and analyzed from a perspective of the usage-based model (Tomasello, 2003). The results show that the token frequency of conventional linguistic units is low in the corpus, and indicate that EGR practitioners need to contrive ways to have learners pay more attention to them in the contexts of stories and effectively entrench them in memory.

Downloads

Published

2019-07-08

Issue

Vol. 7 (2019): Journal of Extensive Reading

Section

Articles

License

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

  1. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
  2. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
  3. Authors are permitted to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website), as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).