Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-28T19:33:26Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Eliane Nunes Pereira Fujarra.pdf: 5285148 bytes, checksum: d675a6f036412c7e1840d9f5583ed5f8 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-10-26 / Secretaria da Educação do Estado de São Paulo / This paper follows the Research Line Reading, Writing and Teaching, in interface with Research Line History and Description of Portuguese, from the Program of Pos-Graduated Studies of Portuguese, from the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo and has focus on the lexicon- grammatical forms of the Brazilian language as the basis of textual process: a non-linguistic knowledge investment of linguistics. It was presumed the textual production strategies are the same when considering the production movements of senses produced by reading written texts, or written texts, or written by reading process. This work privileges, the production movements produced by reading in order to evaluate the proficient reader as well as the need to re-contextualize teaching practices of the Brazilian native language in Elementary and High School. The start point of this research was focused to a study of reading concepts and ways of reading from XVIII, XIX and XX centuries and pointed out to a) the development of a reader unassociated to the writer as these social roles were considered professions and not the basis for practicing citizenship b) two kinds of unassociated reading: an intensive one and an extensive one that anticipate the press development, respectively. The paper also aimed to re-contextualize these concepts suggesting as the general goal to discover the transmutation process of text product to text-process by processing active information of lexicon- grammatical signs that linguistically organize the textual microstructure in order to change it to the macrostructure. In this matter, the research professor, based on the significant reading: the one that decodes while makes the content understandable, allowing the reader to interpret it. The used procedures for that were granted by the inter-textual and inter-discursive principles and indicate the results: a) the learners increase of previous knowledge and encyclopedia information; b) the need of considering that the support of significant reading is the reading/re-reading process from the same text ( intensive method) associated to others of the same thematic identity ( extensive method); c) the practice of teaching reading will one be significant if settled and base on interdiscipline . It is considered that this paper shows the basis of a pedagogic reading development touched by the lexicon-grammatical pedagogy that focus teaching the used language / A Dissertação está situada na Linha de Pesquisa Leitura, Escrita e Ensino, numa interface com a Linha História e Descrição da Língua Portuguesa, do programa e Estudos Pós-Graduados da Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo e tematiza as formas léxico-gramaticais do idioma brasileiro como fundamentos dos processos de textualização: investimento de conhecimentos linguísticos pelos não linguísticos. Tomou-se por pressuposto o fato de as estratégias de produção textual serem as mesmas quer sejam consideradas em relação aos movimentos de produção de leituras de textos escritos, ou de escritos de leituras. Privilegiaram-se os movimentos de produção de sentidos e reconstrução dos conhecimentos pelo produtor leitor desencadeados pelo ato de leitura, de modo a colocar em questão a formação do leitor proficiente, bem como a necessidade de recontextualizar as práticas de docência do professor de língua materna de escolas do Ensino Fundamental e Médio. O ponto de partida da pesquisa esteve configurado para uma abordagem das concepções de leitura e modos de ler do século XVIII, XIX e XX e apontou para: a) uma formação de leitor dissociada daquela do escritor, pois esses papéis sociais eram interpretados como profissões e não como fundamento para a prática de cidadania; b) para duas modalidades de leitura, dissociadas entre si: uma intensiva e outra extensiva que, respectivamente, antecederam ao desenvolvimento da imprensa. Buscamos, ainda, recontextualizar essas concepções, propondo como ler significativamente um texto transmudando-o de texto-produto em texto-processo por meio do processamento de informações ativado pelos sinais léxico-gramaticais que organizam linguisticamente a macroestrutura, de modo a convertê-la em microestrutura. Nesse sentido, o professor-pesquisador valeu-se da leitura significativa do corpus escolhido para esta pesquisa para reconstruir as proposições explícitas da base do texto pelas implícitas, de sorte a se valer da leitura significativa: aquele que faculta decodificação compreendendo para poder interpretar. Os procedimentos adotados, para tanto foram assegurados pelos princípios da intertextualidade e interdiscursividade e apontam como resultados: a) a extensão de conhecimentos prévios dos saberes dos aprendentes; b) o suporte da leitura significativa se qualificar pela leitura-releitura de um mesmo texto (modalidade intensiva), associado a outros que mantêm com ele identidade temática (leitura extensiva); c) a prática de docência de leitura só será significativa se fundada e fundamentada na interdisciplinaridade. Entende-se que a pesquisa apresenta matrizes para a construção de uma pedagogia léxico- gramatical que focaliza o ensino de língua em uso

O objetivo deste trabalho é analisar atividades voltadas ao ensino do léxico em livro didático de Português Língua Estrangeira (PLE). Apoiamo-nos especialmente em Oxford e Scarcella (1994) e Nation (2005) para investigar como o léxico é apresentado e explorado nas atividades do livro didático Português Via Brasil: um curso avançado para estrangeiros (LIMA; IUNES, 2010), bem como seu potencial pedagógico para explorá-lo. A partir da análise de atividades da unidade 1 do livro didático selecionado, observou-se que há uma preocupação em ensinar vocabulário, com ênfase aos aspectos semânticos do léxico e de modo descontextualizado, apresentando-o, por exemplo, no formato de listas de palavras. Foi possível confirmar que o ensino do léxico é tratado com importância nesse material, dada a quantidade de atividades voltadas ao tema, no entanto, ainda está cristalizada a ideia de que seu aprendizado ocorre pelo estudo de listas de palavras isoladas de um contexto específico e limitadas ao seu significado principal (LARA, 1996). / The aim of this study is reviewing activities related to the education of the lexicon in Portuguese as Foreign Language (PFL) textbooks. Mainly we reviewed Oxford and Scarcella (1994) and Nation (2005) textbooks to investigate how the lexicon is introduced and used in activities from Português Via Brasil: um curso avançado para estrangeiros (LIMA; IUNES, 2010) textbook, as well as its pedagogical potential to expand it. From the investigation of the Unit 1 activities in the selected textbook, a concerning about teaching some vocabulary is observed, whose semantic aspects of lexicon and de-contextualization are highlighted when it is used as a word list, for example. It was possible to confirm that the lexicon education is considered as an important material because of the amount of activities related to the theme. However, the idea of learning via a list of single words compiled from a specific context and limited to their primary meaning is still deeply rooted (LARA, 1996).

Investigamos, nesta tese, as bases filogenéticas do léxico humano e o modo como elas foram articuladas às habilidades combinatoriais no curso da evolução. Partimos de uma avaliação da interação entre o léxico e a sintaxe com o intuito de determinar quanto da derivação sintática é dependente de informações lexicais e, em que medida, as propostas disponíveis são coerentes com o desenvolvimento evolutivo humano. Nosso objetivo principal é fornecer uma hipótese para a interface entre o léxico e a sintaxe que seja explicativa e evolutivamente adequada. Para esclarecer as discordâncias empíricas e teóricas observadas, propomos, em contrapartida, uma nova abordagem para a gramática, a Abordagem Isomórfica. Argumentamos que o léxico humano decorre do agrupamento de um conjunto de sistemas pré-adaptados que evoluíram separadamente um sistema conceitual-intencional, um sistema sensório-motor e um sistema funcional, cuja integração é um produto direto da emergência de um sistema combinatorial recursivo. Operacionalmente, buscamos, com essa abordagem, reduzir a influência lexical na formação de um objeto linguístico, na tentativa de assegurar uma isonomia funcional entre o léxico e a sintaxe. Motivamos, adicionalmente, a exaptação de um sistema responsável por derivar as unidades discretas empregadas pelo sistema combinatorial, a que damos o nome de sistema funcional. Compartilhado com primatas não humanos, o sistema funcional justifica-se pelo paralelismo entre a denotação rígida das vocalizações de alerta de primatas não humanos e o conteúdo fixo das unidades funcionais da linguagem humana. Propomos, com base nessa correlação, que os mecanismos cognitivos subjacentes aos sistemas de vocalização primata, instanciados pelo sistema funcional, correspondem aos precursores filogenéticos dos traços formais. Funcionalmente, essa nova abordagem incorpora a visão neoconstrucionista de que a derivação da estrutura sintática independe de informações codificadas nas entradas lexicais. Tal conjectura assegura a autonomia funcional da sintaxe, o que, como resultado, nos aproxima do caminho para se ir além da adequação explicativa. / We investigate, in this dissertation, the phylogenetic bases of human lexicon and how they were articulated with combinatorial abilities in evolution. We begin with an evaluation of the interaction between lexicon and syntax to determine how much of the syntactic derivation is dependent on lexical information, and to which extent the available proposals are consistent with human evolutionary development. Our main goal is to come up with an account for the lexicon-syntax interface that is both explanatory and evolutionarily adequate. In an attempt to eliminate the observed empirical and theoretical divergences, we propose a new approach to grammar, the Isomorphic Approach. We claim the human lexicon arouse from the assemblage of a set of pre-adapted systems that evolved separately viz., a conceptual-intentional, a sensory-motor, and a functional system, whose integration is a by-product of the emergence of a recursive combinatorial system. Operationally, we seek, with this approach, to reduce the burden of lexical influence in the derivation of a linguistic object, with the view to establish a functional isonomy between lexicon and syntax. Furthermore, we motivate the exaptation of a pre-adapted system responsible for deriving the discrete units that feed the combinatorial engine, which we call functional system. Shared with non-human primates, the functional system finds justification in the parallel between the rigid denotation of non-human primate alert calls and the fixed content of human language functional units. We propose, based on this conjecture, that the cognitive mechanisms underlying non-human primate alarm-calling systems, suggestively made available by the functional system, comprise the phylogenetic precursors of human language formal features. Functionally, this new approach incorporates the neo-constructionist view that the derivation of a syntactic structure is independent of lexically encoded instructions. With this premise, we aim to ensure the establishment of an autonomous syntax, which, as a result, brings us closer to the road toward a level of explanation that goes beyond explanatory adequacy.

There are many pieces of flight deck research on general use of written English language technical information and problem solving using technical documentation. Contributory causes of aircraft accidents have been due to misunderstandings of crew alerts and procedural divergence by English as-a-second language flight crewmembers (ESL). Research was conducted to understand impact of written English language technical information on ESL flight crewmembers’ performance. Two types of systems were evaluated, technical documentation and crew alerting systems that contain technical information, with respect to their impact on ESL flight crewmember performance. Preliminary analysis results indicated written English language technical information can be confusing, difficult to read and interpret, and leads to misunderstandings by ESL flight crewmembers during aircraft nonnormal conditions. English as-a-second language flight crewmembers indicated they often experience problems executing written English language technical procedures after outset of crew alerts. Conversely, experimental trials revealed ESL flight crewmembers did not experience many cognitive performance issues with use of crew alerting systems and technical information designed with an English language emphasis. English as-a second language flight crewmembers’ English language proficiency, background knowledge, and use of use of metacognitive strategies to read and comprehend written English language on crew alerting and information systems, indicated they utilized written English technical information with ease. Particularly, ESL flight crewmembers’ workload was low, they had fast response times to system faults, and they experienced minimal procedural deviations. On the contrary, when ESL flight crewmembers utilized written English language technical procedures translated into their native language during non-normal conditions, they experienced several cognitive performance challenges. English as-a second language flight crewmembers’ background knowledge of written English language technical information translated into their native language, use of metacognitive strategies to read and comprehend written English language translated into their native language, indicated they experienced difficulties with reading and comprehending translated technical information on information systems. Particularly, ESL flight crewmembers were challenged cognitively when they responded to crew alerts through execution of decision-making processes. They indicated translation of written English language technical information into their native language was a pre-cursor to procedural deviation, long response times to system issues, as well as high workload during experimental trials. It is recommended that further research focus on design and use of written English language technical documentation by ESL flight crewmembers during non-normal conditions. It is also recommended that if deemed practical by the aviation industry, further research should focus on design, integration, and utilization of technical documentation in a language(s) other than English, and measurement of ESL flight crewmembers performance on the flight deck.

Submitted by Cássia Santos (cassia.bcufg@gmail.com) on 2016-08-05T10:10:29Z No. of bitstreams: 2 Tese - Ana Lourdes Cardoso Dias - 2016.pdf: 5417683 bytes, checksum: b78ac2770efe1ad69da9b3bcff5104c2 (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Luciana Ferreira (lucgeral@gmail.com) on 2016-08-05T15:05:36Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 Tese - Ana Lourdes Cardoso Dias - 2016.pdf: 5417683 bytes, checksum: b78ac2770efe1ad69da9b3bcff5104c2 (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-08-05T15:05:36Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 Tese - Ana Lourdes Cardoso Dias - 2016.pdf: 5417683 bytes, checksum: b78ac2770efe1ad69da9b3bcff5104c2 (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-03-31 / The toponym field, a sub-area of Onomastics, studies the names of places, their meanings and origins, the changes and motivations which influence the process of choosing those names. This study presents a toponym investigation regarding the first cities in the state of Tocantins, the ones that started and established themselves from gold mining in the 18th century. It also approaches the names of rivers – hydronymy – in the region due to the significance of them in the establishment of the cities. Since, in most cases, waterways are the first environmental elements named. Afterwards, their names become the identification of urban settlements by the riverside. This study aims to identify senses and motivations that influenced the process of naming these places. To that end, toponyms shaping this Onomastics system were described, analyzed and interpreted, observing that, because of their specific role in referencing and identifying things in a geographic space, they are not ordinary signs of language, they are instruments of ideological propagation at the same time. Hence, this investigation has gone beyond theoretical Linguistics, it employs an interdisciplinary viewpoint, in which there is an intersection among history, geography and other knowledge areas. Thus, we searched for a methodology that enables combining these areas as to treat the linguistic phenomenon. We have decided on using principles of Historic Linguistics with sociocultural traces, in the Onomastics method perspective and along with Wörter und Sachen (Words and Things), since they are both theories that approach semantics as related to history and culture. Data collection, which has been carried out through historiography written documents, sustained toponyms existence before and nowadays. These documents allowed a historical retreat of facts that encouraged the toponym choice and retrieve possible meanings. Aspects regarding beliefs, cultural values, ideologies, geographic features, and cognition were identified as the motivation when choosing the names of the first cities in Tocantins. These factors reflect themselves in the toponym linguistic structure, translating the dominant intentionality when naming places. Besides, toponym of the region observed preserve a world-view and an ideology of power perpetuation, mainly related to politics and religion, from the very beginning and with slight changes throughout the history. Therefore, it is a collective memory repository, because it records significant aspects of life in society, representing a valuable linguistic-cultural heritage. / A Toponímia, subárea da Onomástica, ocupa-se do estudo dos nomes dos lugares, ou seja, de seus significados, de suas origens, das transformações e das motivações que influíram nas escolhas desses nomes. Nesta tese, apresenta-se o estudo toponímico dos primeiros municípios do estado do Tocantins, aqueles que se iniciaram e estabeleceram-se a partir da mineração do ouro, no século XVIII. Trata-se também do estudo dos nomes dos rios – hidronímia – da região devido à importância deles para a formação desses municípios. Na maioria das vezes, os cursos d’agua são os primeiros elementos do meio ambiente a serem batizados. Posteriormente, seus nomes passam a nomear também os aglomerados urbanos que se formam em suas margens. Pretendeu-se, com este trabalho, identificar os significados e as motivações que influenciaram a escolha dos nomes desses lugares. Para isso, procurou-se descrever, analisar e interpretar os topônimos que compõem esse sistema onomástico, tendo em vista que não são signos comuns da língua por sua função específica de referenciar e identificar entidades no espaço geográfico, ao mesmo tempo que são instrumentos de veiculação de ideologias. Por isso, este trabalho vai além da Linguística teórica, adota-se uma visão interdisciplinar, em que a história, a geografia e outras áreas do conhecimento interseccionam-se. Assim, buscou-se uma orientação metodológica capaz de unir essas áreas no tratamento do fenômeno linguístico. Escolheu-se trabalhar com os princípios da Linguística Histórica de tendência sociocultural, na perspectiva do método Onomasiológico e em conjunto com o Wörter und Sachen (Palavras e Coisas), uma vez que são teorias do campo da semântica correlacionadas com a história e a cultura. Procedeu-se à coleta de dados por meio de documentos escritos de valor historiográficos que confirmam a existência dos topônimos em épocas anteriores e na atualidade. Esses documentos permitiram a reconstituição histórica dos fatos que motivaram a escolha toponímica e o resgate dos possíveis significados. Percebeu-se que as motivações para as escolhas dos nomes dos primeiros municípios tocantinenses fixam-se em crenças, valores culturais, ideologias, aspectos da realidade física da região, além dos aspectos cognitivos. Esses fatores refletem-se nas estruturas linguísticas dos topônimos, traduzindo a intencionalidade do denominador no ato denominativo. E ainda, a toponímia dessa região em estudo conserva a visão de mundo e as ideologias de poder, principalmente a política e a religiosa, do período inicial de sua formação com pequenas alterações ao longo da história. Por isso, é um repositório de memória coletiva por armazenar aspectos importantes da vida em sociedade, constituindo-se em um rico patrimônio linguístico-cultural.

O objetivo deste trabalho é analisar atividades voltadas ao ensino do léxico em livro didático de Português Língua Estrangeira (PLE). Apoiamo-nos especialmente em Oxford e Scarcella (1994) e Nation (2005) para investigar como o léxico é apresentado e explorado nas atividades do livro didático Português Via Brasil: um curso avançado para estrangeiros (LIMA; IUNES, 2010), bem como seu potencial pedagógico para explorá-lo. A partir da análise de atividades da unidade 1 do livro didático selecionado, observou-se que há uma preocupação em ensinar vocabulário, com ênfase aos aspectos semânticos do léxico e de modo descontextualizado, apresentando-o, por exemplo, no formato de listas de palavras. Foi possível confirmar que o ensino do léxico é tratado com importância nesse material, dada a quantidade de atividades voltadas ao tema, no entanto, ainda está cristalizada a ideia de que seu aprendizado ocorre pelo estudo de listas de palavras isoladas de um contexto específico e limitadas ao seu significado principal (LARA, 1996). / The aim of this study is reviewing activities related to the education of the lexicon in Portuguese as Foreign Language (PFL) textbooks. Mainly we reviewed Oxford and Scarcella (1994) and Nation (2005) textbooks to investigate how the lexicon is introduced and used in activities from Português Via Brasil: um curso avançado para estrangeiros (LIMA; IUNES, 2010) textbook, as well as its pedagogical potential to expand it. From the investigation of the Unit 1 activities in the selected textbook, a concerning about teaching some vocabulary is observed, whose semantic aspects of lexicon and de-contextualization are highlighted when it is used as a word list, for example. It was possible to confirm that the lexicon education is considered as an important material because of the amount of activities related to the theme. However, the idea of learning via a list of single words compiled from a specific context and limited to their primary meaning is still deeply rooted (LARA, 1996).

O presente trabalho objetiva realizar um levantamento do léxico da seção Cotidiano Brasileiro do livro didático Português Via Brasil: um curso avançado para estrangeiros, identificar os campos léxico-semânticos para, com isso, verificar como é apresentada a cultura brasileira aos alunos estrangeiros que querem aprendê-la. Ao se pensar em ensino/aprendizagem de uma língua estrangeira, sabe-se que não é possível dissociar o ensino/aprendizagem de língua e cultura da nação que a tem como oficial, tendo em vista que, para se compreender a estrutura de uma língua, é necessário, também, que se entenda a cultura dos falantes dessa língua. Por ser o léxico a parte da língua que veicula dados culturais e contribui para a compreensão da visão de mundo do falante, optou-se por realizar um levantamento e estudo das escolhas lexicais (lexias) do corpus, a fim de poder identificar como a cultura brasileira é apresentada no LD selecionado. / This paper aims to make a survey on the lexicon in \"Cotidiano Brasileiro\" from the textbook \"Português Via Brasil: um curso avançado para estrangeiros\", to identify the lexical-semantic fields, and to check how Brazilian culture is presented to foreigner students who want to learn it. When thinking about teaching/learning a foreign language, it is known that it is not possible to separate teaching/learning of the language and culture of a nation, having in mind that in order to understand the structure of a language it is also necessary to understand the culture of the speakers of that language. The lexicon is the part of the language that conveys cultural information and contributes to the understanding of the world around us, and being so it has been decided to lead a survey and a study of the lexical choices of the corpus so that it can be identified how the Brazilian culture is shown on the selected textbook and as well as analyzed and presented through the lexicon for foreign students.

L’objectif de cette recherche est d’étudier, dans une approche critique et interventionniste, l’aménagement lexical du berbère. L’étude critique des actions glottopolitiques, de la fragmentation dialectologique ainsi que la réflexion sur la revitalisation et la normalisation linguistique ont brossé l’essentiel de la berbérophonie. Cette thèse est organisée en trois parties. La première partie présente une étude critique des actions glottopolitiques concernant le berbère et la sociolinguistique étudiant ces questions. La deuxième partie explore la diversité linguistique et la configuration dialectale de cette langue. Dans une perspective de revitalisation et de normalisation linguistique, nous avons développé une réflexion sur l’adoption du concept de la langue polynomique au berbère, en nous basant en premier lieu sur sa situation dialectologique et sa vitalité. La dernière partie met en pratique les réflexions théoriques, présentées dans les deux parties précédentes, dans le domaine de l’aménagement lexical. C’est une illustration de l’aménagement du vocabulaire commun et spécialisé. Elle comprend également une réflexion sur l’aménagement terminologique, la normalisation linguistique et leur mise en pratique dans le cadre d’un processus d’aménagement à la fois polynomique et convergent. En conclusion, nous suggérons, pour la normalisation du berbère, un aménagement polynomique permettant à la fois d’intégrer la variation dialectologique et d’engager un processus de convergence. Celui-ci doit nécessairement s’appuyer sur l’étude de la dialectalisation de cette langue ainsi que sur la vitalité de ses différents groupes. / The objective of this research is to study, in a critical and interventionist approach, the lexical planning of Berber. Critical studies of glottopolitical actions and dialectological fragmentation, as well as reflections on revitalization and linguistic normalization, have brushed the great majority of the Berber-speaking world. This dissertation is organized into three parts. The first part presents a critical study of glottopolitical actions concerning Berber and sociolinguistics studying these questions. The objective is to establish an inventory of theoretical research and the implementation of glottopolitical actions in the Berber area. The second part explores the linguistic diversity and dialectal configuration of Berber. In a perspective of revitalization and linguistic normalization, we have developed a reflection on the adoption of the concept of the polynomic language to Berber, basing ourselves first and primarily on its dialectological situation and its vitality. The last part puts into practice the theoretical reflections presented in the two preceding parts in the field of lexical planning. This is an illustration of the planning of common and specialized vocabulary. It also includes a reflection on terminological planning, linguistic standardization and their application in a polynomic and convergent planning process. In conclusion, we suggest, for the “normalization” of Berber, a polynomic planning allowing both to integrate the dialectological variation and to initiate a process of convergence. This must necessarily be based on the study of the dialectalization of this language as well as on the vitality of its different groups.

This study examines the effects of Song and Involvement Load on the acquisition and retention of lexical items by beginner learners of Italian. Lexical acquisition is investigated via an incidental learning experiment that is based on the premise that growth in L2 vocabulary results from rehearsal and repeated exposure to lexical items in a variety of contexts. More specifically, the study hypothesizes that Song contributes to subvocal rehearsal, a mechanism that facilitates the retention of phonological information. In addition, the study hypothesizes that Involvement Load, as posited by Laufer and Hulstijn (2001), contributes to retention through “elaborate processing”(Craik & Tulving, 1975) of lexical items. In order to evaluate participants‟ lexical acquisition, an experiment with pretest/posttest design was carried out. Participants were divided into one of five groups consisting of a Control Group and four treatment groups. Treatment groups were exposed to a Song either in a sung condition or read as a poem (i.e. without music) while the Control Group completed only the pretest and posttests. Treatment groups also completed lexical tasks designed with either low or high levels of Involvement Load. The pretest and posttests (administered at four and eight weeks respectively after the pretest) were based on Paribakht and Wesche‟s (1996) Vocabulary iii Knowledge Scale. It was hypothesized that in the case of both short-term acquisition (four weeks after the pretest) and retention (eight weeks thereafter) (i) participants exposed to Song would obtain higher scores than participants only exposed to the lyrics; (ii) participants completing High Involvement tasks would score higher than participants completing Low Involvement tasks; and (iii) the effects of Song would be greater than the effects of Involvement Load on test scores. Results indicated that at both posttests, participants exposed to Song obtained higher scores than participants only exposed to lyrics (p=0.004). Additionally, participants carrying out High Involvement tasks scored higher than participants carrying out Low Involvement tasks (p=0.017). However, a comparison of the strength of the effects of Song and Involvement Load on acquisition and retention of target items yielded inconclusive results (p=.383). The validation of many of the hypotheses suggests that song and involvement load are effective in the acquisition and retention of L2 lexical items and should be implemented in the L2 curriculum.

This study examines the effects of Song and Involvement Load on the acquisition and retention of lexical items by beginner learners of Italian. Lexical acquisition is investigated via an incidental learning experiment that is based on the premise that growth in L2 vocabulary results from rehearsal and repeated exposure to lexical items in a variety of contexts. More specifically, the study hypothesizes that Song contributes to subvocal rehearsal, a mechanism that facilitates the retention of phonological information. In addition, the study hypothesizes that Involvement Load, as posited by Laufer and Hulstijn (2001), contributes to retention through “elaborate processing”(Craik & Tulving, 1975) of lexical items. In order to evaluate participants‟ lexical acquisition, an experiment with pretest/posttest design was carried out. Participants were divided into one of five groups consisting of a Control Group and four treatment groups. Treatment groups were exposed to a Song either in a sung condition or read as a poem (i.e. without music) while the Control Group completed only the pretest and posttests. Treatment groups also completed lexical tasks designed with either low or high levels of Involvement Load. The pretest and posttests (administered at four and eight weeks respectively after the pretest) were based on Paribakht and Wesche‟s (1996) Vocabulary iii Knowledge Scale. It was hypothesized that in the case of both short-term acquisition (four weeks after the pretest) and retention (eight weeks thereafter) (i) participants exposed to Song would obtain higher scores than participants only exposed to the lyrics; (ii) participants completing High Involvement tasks would score higher than participants completing Low Involvement tasks; and (iii) the effects of Song would be greater than the effects of Involvement Load on test scores. Results indicated that at both posttests, participants exposed to Song obtained higher scores than participants only exposed to lyrics (p=0.004). Additionally, participants carrying out High Involvement tasks scored higher than participants carrying out Low Involvement tasks (p=0.017). However, a comparison of the strength of the effects of Song and Involvement Load on acquisition and retention of target items yielded inconclusive results (p=.383). The validation of many of the hypotheses suggests that song and involvement load are effective in the acquisition and retention of L2 lexical items and should be implemented in the L2 curriculum.