Abstract
The purpose of this study is to investigate the factors in lexical inferencing (learner strategies and learning conditions) that affect the acquisition of vocabulary knowledge depth for Japanese EFL learners. Sixty participants attempted to infer the meaning of 12 target words in the three learning conditions: the target word only, one sentence, and two sentences. They then performed a word association task with the target words. The results show that second language (L2) learners acquired the following: (a) the paradigmatic network between known and unknown words through lexical inferencing with word knowledge, (b) the syntagmatic network with their background knowledge, and (c) both networks with word and background knowledge. In addition, they seemed to acquire the syntagmatic and associated networks through guessing the meanings of the target words in the two-sentence condition more effectively than those in the one-sentence condition, but this learning condition did not affect the acquisition of the paradigmatic network. Based on these findings, this paper discusses effective incidental vocabulary learning in terms of pedagogical implications.
