Abstract
The goal of this study was to test the effect of typographical features of subtitles including size, color and position on nonnative English viewers’ retention and recall of lyrics in music videos. To do so, the researcher played a simple subtitled music video for the participants at the beginning of their classes, and administered a 31-blank cloze test from the lyrics at the end of the classes. In the second test, the control group went through the same procedure but experimental group watched the customized subtitled version of the music video. The results demonstrated no significant difference between the two groups in the first test but in the second, the scores remarkably increased in the experimental group and proved better retention and recall. This study has implications for English language teachers and material developers to benefit customized bimodal subtitles as a mnemonic tool for better comprehension, retention and recall of aural contents in videos via Computer Assisted Language Teaching approach.
Highlights
Music and songs in any language are like chains that link people regardless of their language, race, and nation and any other discriminators
When song tracks are produced in music videos, they are transformed into an embedded context that activates another human intelligence, the visual or spatial intelligence (Gardner, 1983), attracts more attention, provides more comprehensibility and creates more sense of appreciation
Subtitles as visual stimuli in music videos showcase the value of song lyrics and help nonnative English speakers a lot to understand the lyrics more and make a better connection with the song to enjoy
Summary
Music and songs in any language are like chains that link people regardless of their language, race, and nation and any other discriminators. When song tracks are produced in music videos, they are transformed into an embedded context that activates another human intelligence, the visual or spatial intelligence (Gardner, 1983), attracts more attention, provides more comprehensibility and creates more sense of appreciation. There is another extra-musical factor that could create more amount of comprehension, appreciation and attention, it is subtitles. Subtitles as visual stimuli in music videos showcase the value of song lyrics and help nonnative English speakers a lot to understand the lyrics more and make a better connection with the song to enjoy. Some believe that subtitles of any type could cause distraction in comprehension or learning, on the other hand, there are various studies in the literature that repudiate this assumption, such as Vanderplank (1988) who states “far from being a distraction and a source of laziness, subtitles might have a potential value in helping the learning acquisition process by providing learners with the key to massive quantities of authentic and comprehensible language input”
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