Definition of Vocabulary Vocabulary

20 vocabulary is the words obtained by the process of comprehending of words where speakers have to come with a way of conveying information to someone else. They must plan what to say, choose the right words, determine appropriate speech act, and finally produce their utterances. Jennings 1980 in Bahri 2009 uses two terms of vocabulary which are a bit different from Cla rk and Clark’s terms. Those are active vocabulary and recognition vocabulary. Active vocabulary is vocabulary which constitutes the words used in speaking and writing. Moreover, recognition vocabulary is vocabulary which is composed by the words which are heard and read, but not ordinarily used in speaking and writing. Wallace 1982, Bright and Mc Gregor 1970 in Bahri 2009 use the terms receptive and productive vocabulary which refers to active and recognition vocabulary. They make a distinction between receptive and productive vocabulary but they do not give explanatory definition. Similarly, Nation 2001 uses the terms receptive and productive vocabulary. In receptive vocabulary, we will obtain language input from others through listening and reading and we will try to comprehend it. Receptive vocabulary use involves perceiving the form of a word while listening and reading and retrieving its meaning. In productive vocabulary, we will produce language forms by speaking or writing to convey messages to the others. Productive vocabulary use involves attempt to express a meaning by retrieving and producing the appropriate spoken or written word form through speaking and writing. The distinction between receptive and productive vocabulary is the result of different 21 type of association between words. Productive vocabulary can be activated by other words because it has many incoming and outgoing links with other words.

e. Number of Words

The English language is said to contain around 54,000 word families when these are counted in a large dictionary Nation and Waring in Cameron, 2001. Whereas Webster’s Third New Dictionary, the largest non-historical dictionary of English, contains around 114,000 words families excluding proper names. First and secon d language learners’ vocabulary stretch in vocabulary size differently. An educated native speaker is estimated to have around 20,000 word families Cameron, 2001. It is resulted by adding a thousand to 5,000 words a year by age of five. In the other hand, most adult of second language learners will only acquire around 5,000 word families even after several years of study. The most important thing to remember is that the first language learners can easily learn to the language in their daily life. They have all access to the language use. Television, magazines and communication with other native speakers are the best way to improve their vocabulary. In contrast, second language learners cannot do the same thing. They should attend to the school to learn English. No real atmosphere of the real English is provided. They rarely use the authentic material of English. It makes hard for the second language learners to have the same amount of vocabulary compared to the first language learners. By the great amount of words of English, a second language learner seems to have lower word acquisition than native learner.