Recent research highlights the value of metalinguistic explanations in facilitating second language (L2) grammar acquisition. Nevertheless, a notable research gap persists regarding how these explanations influence incidental grammar acquisition and their impact on overall reading processes and comprehension. Furthermore, whether the potentially positive effects of metalinguistic explanations transfer to the acquisition of subsequent constructions without explicit guidance is an unexplored domain. This study addresses these research gaps by recruiting 42 Korean undergraduate students and assigning them to the metalinguistic or baseline groups. The metalinguistic group read an English text supplemented with bottom-margin metalinguistic explanations, which elucidated the first half of the target grammar (without explanations for the second half), whereas the baseline group read the same text without explanations. This study used eye-tracking technology to register participants’ eye movements during reading, followed by an announced reading comprehension test and an unannounced error correction test. Statistical analyses using linear mixed-effects models (LMMs) and t-tests revealed that metalinguistic explanations significantly enhanced incidental grammar acquisition in L2 learners without compromising overall reading processes and comprehension. However, the benefits of metalinguistic explanations in the metalinguistic group failed to extend to the incidental learning of other unexplained constructions.

中文翻译：

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元语言解释及其对偶然语法习得的影响：一项眼动研究


最近的研究强调了元语言解释在促进第二语言 （L2） 语法习得方面的价值。然而，关于这些解释如何影响偶然的语法习得及其对整体阅读过程和理解的影响，仍然存在明显的研究差距。此外，元语言解释的潜在积极影响是否在没有明确指导的情况下转移到后续结构的习得是一个尚未探索的领域。本研究通过招募 42 名韩国本科生并将他们分配到元语言或基线组来解决这些研究差距。元语言组阅读英文文本，并辅以下边距元语言解释，阐明了目标语法的前半部分（没有后半部分的解释），而基线组阅读相同的文本，没有解释。本研究使用眼动追踪技术来记录参与者在阅读过程中的眼球运动，然后是宣布的阅读理解测试和未宣布的纠错测试。使用线性混合效应模型 （LMM） 和 t 检验的统计分析表明，元语言解释显着增强了 L2 学习者的偶然语法习得，而不会影响整体阅读过程和理解。然而，元语言学组的元语言解释的好处未能扩展到对其他无法解释的结构的偶然学习。