There has been a consensus that vocabulary knowledge has become a major contributor to L2 learners ’ efficient communication and comprehension. Incidental vocabulary acquisition relates to lexical gains as a by-product resulting from accomplishing another activity which is not aimed at learning vocabulary. This article intends to provide a digest of research on incidental vocabulary acquisition over the past few decades by primarily focusing on related theoretical frameworks, possible explanatory variables mediating incidental vocabulary learning, and tasks targeted at enhancing incidental lexical growth. In line with analyses of findings yielded from an impressive number of illuminating studies conducted, this article calls for a diversification of efforts in relation to multi-word lexical items, multi-modal e-learning technologies, and insights from neuroscience that may warrant more scholarly attention. These possible areas would further enrich the current scope of L2 incidental vocabulary acquisition research.

中文翻译：

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附带的L2词汇习得和阅读：关注，进展和未来方向

人们已经达成共识，词汇知识已成为第二语言学习者有效沟通和理解的主要因素。附带的词汇习得与作为完成另一项不旨在学习词汇的活动的副产品而获得的词汇获得有关。本文旨在通过重点研究相关的理论框架，介导附带词汇学习的可能解释变量以及旨在增强附带词汇增长的任务，来提供过去几十年中附带词汇习得研究的摘要。与对大量启发性研究的发现进行的分析相一致，本文呼吁在多词词汇项目，多模式电子学习技术，和来自神经科学的见识，可能会引起更多的学术关注。这些可能的领域将进一步丰富当前的L2附带词汇习得研究范围。