Abstract
This paper examines the effects of intralingual and interlingual subtitles on Brazilian English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners’ L2 vocabulary learning as a result of their processing and comprehension of a North-American sitcom. Thirty-six intermediate-level EFL learners, enrolled in the Extracurricular Language Courses at Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina (UFSC), were evenly divided into two experimental groups (intralingual subtitles and interlingual subtitles) and one control group (no subtitles). Participants’ performance was measured based on an L2 vocabulary test (pre-test, test, and post-test), considering factors influencing word learnability (Laufer, 1997). Regarding the effects of subtitling availability, statistical tests and analyses performed revealed that experimental conditions were not found to substantially foster L2 vocabulary learning, and no statistically significant differences among the experimental groups and the control group were found. Across time, the results obtained point out to more positive growth in performance by the intralingual subtitles group, followed by the interlingual subtitles group, and then the control group. These results are discussed in light of the possible different processing mechanisms employed as well as some of the potentials and drawbacks that both intralingual and interlingual subtitles may offer for L2 learning/instructional purposes.
Highlights
The disciplinary field of Second LanguageAcquisition (SLA) has devoted considerable scholar attention to the research behind the use of subtitled videos in and outside language classrooms focusing on vocabulary learning
In light of these results, there still seems to be a need for further scrutiny regarding the effects of intralingual and interlingual subtitles for language development, especially when one considers the fact that certain populations of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners have been underinvestigated – brazilian EFL learners being the case in point
Subtitling and L2 vocabulary vocabulary test, whereas subsection 4.2 focuses on the discussion and highlights the main findings
Summary
Acquisition (SLA) has devoted considerable scholar attention to the research behind the use of subtitled videos in and outside language classrooms focusing on vocabulary learning. In analyzing the results obtained by these studies with a focus on those that looked at a direct comparison of intralingual subtitles and their absence, out of the six studies, the scenario we get is that four of them favored the presence of intralingual subtitles, whereas two of them found no differences between experimental and control groups, when their focus was not on L2 word learning per se In light of these results, there still seems to be a need for further scrutiny regarding the effects of intralingual and interlingual subtitles for language development, especially when one considers the fact that certain populations of EFL learners have been underinvestigated – brazilian EFL learners being the case in point
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