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something, although, actually, both verbs have slight different sense. The verb make has the sense of forcing somebody to do something, on the other hand, the
verb have has the sense of persuading or ordering somebody to do something.
Three respondents wrongly associate the verb MAKE with Indonesian
translation equivalents berlari and meminta. The Indonesian translation berlari and meminta are mostly outside the meaning boundary of the verb MAKE. It
seems that the respondents fail to identify the meaning boundary of those words.
B. Discussion
1. The Mapping of L2 Vocabularies
Vocabulary teaching generally focuses primarily on two aspects: form and meaning. The meaning taught is usually the core meanings of the words and the
other possible meanings are often neglected because they are considered irrelevant at the moment Mukarto: 1999: 34. According to Carter 1998: 277 a core word
has several characteristics: 1 has the most possible collocates with other words, 2 has the most other meanings, 3 usually has an accepted antonym 4 cannot
easily be defined in term of other words, 5 some combination of these factors. Based on that notion, the core meaning of the tested verbs based on the
respondents’ knowledge could be found by seeing the meaning that is most frequently occurred or mostly shared by the respondents. Therefore, the core
meaning of the verb SEE is look at that is considered equivalent with melihat, the core meaning of the verb MAKE is create that is considered equivalent membuat,
the core meaning of the verb ASK is question that is considered equivalent with bertanya, the core meaning of the verb KEEP is guard that is considered
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equivalent with menjaga, and the core meaning of the verb GET is receive that is considered equivalent with mendapatkan. The decreasing of meaning frequency
from the verb that has the highest frequency to the verb that has the lowest frequency may indicate that the meanings in the table range from the core
meaning to peripheral meaning. It may show that in the high frequency words the unknown features of the verb is relatively low so that it is easier for the
respondents to identify their semantics features whereas in the low frequency words the unknown semantic features is relatively high.
The tables of meaning frequency of every verb showed that the respondents’ knowledge on the meaning of each verb is varied. It may confirm
Jiang’s statement that learners’ L2 lexicon contains words that are at various stages of development, or, it can be said that a respondent’s knowledge on the
meaning of certain words may better than the other words. In the study, the four verbs: SEE, ASK, GET, and KEEP showed that the
respondents’ have built L2 lexical networks on their lexicon. They mapped or associated the tested verbs with other different verbs to express their knowledge
on the meaning of the tested verbs. The respondent may no longer depend on Indonesian translation equivalent in the meaning recognition of the verbs; instead
they have had a L2 lexical network to recognize the meaning of the tested verbs. On the other hand, when the respondents still rely on L1 translation in
recognizing L2 words meaning rather than associate them with other L2 words or extracted from context, based on Jiang’s stages of L2 lexical development 2000,
they may either in the word association stage or conceptmediation stage. In the word association stage, every time L2 students encounter L2 words they pick out
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their L1 translation from their lexicon in the process of recognition of L2 words meaning. In other words, the students map L2 words to L1 translation form and
meaning. On the other hand, when the students have got more experience in L2 use, the L2 words are no longer mapped to L1 translation instead they are mapped
to L1 meaning directly. Therefore, in the conceptmediation stage, the L1 meaning mediates the L2 use. This can be seen in the study from the table of
meaning frequency of the verb MAKE. The table of meaning frequency of the verb MAKE showed that the respondents mostly associate or map the verb with
its Indonesian translation equivalents which indicates that the respondents still rely on the Indonesian translation equivalents to recognize the meaning of the
tested verbs. However, the participants in this study cannot be directly judged whether they are in the wordassociation stage or in the conceptmediation stage.
It needs further investigation to state whether the respondents in the word association stage or conceptmediation. Further study needs to be conducted for
two reasons. First, this study involves participants in a group, not individuals, while a learner’s mental lexicon may contain words that are at various stage of
development Jiang, 2000: 54 and the respondents probably know somewhat different vocabulary even if they are members of rather homogenous group
Schmitt, 1998: 282. Second, to see whether the students have reached concept mediation stage or not, the focus of the study should be on the productive
knowledge of L2 rather than in receptive knowledge as this study does. It should be noted that this study is intended to see the quality of the students’ knowledge
or the students’ depth of vocabulary knowledge on certain words; not to investigate students’ lexical competence or lexical development as a whole.
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Since the third semester students are the sophomore students, they may have not had enough exposure to English. In the previous stage of learning junior
high school or senior high school the students probably got English learning subject in their school but the teaching and learning process still use Indonesian as
the medium of instruction. This kind of English learning setting may not provide the students with enough exposure to English. Moreover, when learning English
vocabularies the students are provided with the Indonesian translation to facilitate the vocabularies learning. It gives the students opportunity to remember the
meaning of the vocabularies in form of Indonesian translation rather than extracted from context, i.e. English texts. Jiang 2000: 50 said that in the initial
stage of vocabulary learning, especially in tutored context, L2 vocabularies are learned as formal entities or the vocabulary learning is focused on the formal
features of the word, i.e. spelling, pronunciation, the meaning is provided through L1 translation or by means of definition rather than extracted or learned from
context by learners themselves. In the university year, the participants in this study took vocabulary
courses: Vocabulary I and Vocabulary II courses. In Vocabulary I and II courses, the students
studied the vocabulary using wordlist, translation as well as structuredrepetition technique with little context of L2 use. However, the
structuredrepetition technique proved to be effective to increase the students’ mastery of English vocabularies size. This technique allows the learners to reach
beyond the threshold where they can start to learn from context. Without knowing enough words, one cannot easily learn from context. In the next level of learning
or in the next semester, the students will get more exposure to English from the
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courses such as prose, extensive reading, drama, and play performance, so that they have more opportunity to learn English from context and reach fuller
development stage of L2 lexical development.
2. Cases of Wrong Meaning Mapping
