Captioned Television and the Vocabulary Acquisition of Adult Second Language Correlational Facility Residents

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of captioned television on the incidental vocabulary acquisition of seventy-two inmates of a Pennsylvania correctional facility. Participants viewed nine science information segments over a period of nine weeks. They were randomly assigned to one of two groups. One group of inmates was exposed to the science video segments with captions and the other group viewed the same science video material without captions. No definitions or explanations of the target science words were given during the brief science orientation sessions that took place on a weekly basis. Three posttests were administered to assess the participants' acquisition of the targeted vocabulary words. The tests consisted of word recognition, sentence anomaly, and word meaning measures. A brief television viewing questionnaire was also developed to assess the participants' perception of knowledge gained via the science videos and their opinion of the use of captions with such material. The results revealed no significant differences between the two groups on the word recognition and sentence anomaly posttests. However, the word meaning test yielded significant differences ( p < .05) favoring the captioned television condition. In addition, the questionnaire data indicated that the participants responded very positively to the science videos and to the use of captions with science material. The article concludes with a brief discussion of the potential contributions of captions in the second language context.