Abstract

 With the popularity of the Internet, English learners have easier access to original English videos, especially English movies and American soap operas. English videos gain popularities among Chinese English learners because learners find them more attractive than conventional classroom teaching. English videos create English language environment for second-language learners, making it possible to facilitate learners’ second language acquisition in the process of their autonomous English learning. Through watching English videos, English learners can acquire not only  the vocabularies, grammar and pronunciation of English but also English language countries’ cultures and customs. What’s worth mentioning, most of these positive effects are acquired in a subconscious way which is called incidental acquisition.    
It is acknowledged that language learning cannot occur without input. If we can’t have enough output, at least we can have as much input as possible. Since movie watching provides many kinds of input, it will definitely benefit English learners in different ways. Besides, English movies are like Encyclopedias, involving all kinds of fields in society and its language is authentic and close to real life, which are perfect learning materials for second language learners. Therefore, it is of desperate necessity and great significance to study this field and there is still huge space for us to explore.
The present thesis attempts to discuss the incidental acquisition in the movie-watching context, where there are few or no earlier researches and studies, both abroad or at home, to refer to. The goal of this research is to attract the scholars and researchers more attention to incidental acquisition in the movie-watching context and to apply their findings in this field, because movies are resourceful materials for English learning. Additionally, this study is also aiming at calling for educators to apply English movies in English teaching and encouraging learners to use them as learning materials in autonomous English learning.

Keywords: second language; English videos(movies); incidental acquisition

摘要

随着因特网的普及，英语学习者能够更加容易地接触到英语原版影视素材，尤其是英文电影和美剧。英语影视在中国英语学习者中备受青睐。英语学习者认为英语影视比传统的课堂教学更具有吸引力。英语影视向二语学习者提供了英语语言环境，使学习者能在自学的过程中提高二语习得。通过观看英语影视素材，英语学习者不仅能够学习英语词汇、英语语法和英语语音，还可以进一步的了解英语语言国家的文化背景和传统习俗。值得一提的是，以上的这些正面效应大多数都是在潜意识的情况下获得的，这种习得被称作附带习得。
众所周知，没有语言的输入就难以完成语言的学习。在条件有限的情况下，如果不能有足够的语言输出，至少可以有尽可能多的输入。由于英语影视素材可以提供多种类型的输入，它肯定能使英语学习者在英语学习的各个方面受益。此外，英语影视素材就好比是百科全书，涉及了社会的各个领域，而且其中的语言地道，贴近生活。毋庸置疑，这是难得的英语学习素材。因此，研究学习这个仍有很大探索空间的领域是极其有必要且意义重大的。
本文旨在讨论研究影视英语的附带习得。目前，国内外在这一方面的研究较少，可参考的文献也屈指可数。希望通过本文的研究可以吸引更多的学者和研究者的目光，使他们关注并投入到影视英语附带习得的研究中来。此外，本文也旨在呼吁教育者将英语影视素材运用到英语教学中,并鼓励学习者将此作为自学英语的学习材料。

关键词：第二语言；英语影视（电影）；附带习得