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Hyponyms: items that serve as specific examples of a general concept; dog, lion, mouse, are hyponyms of animal; 4 Co-hyponyms or co-ordinates: other
items that are the “same kind of thing”; red, blue, green, and brown are co- ordinates; 5 Super ordinates: general concepts that “cover” specific items;
animal is the super ordinates of lion, dog, mouse, etc; 6 Translation: words or expressions in the learners’ mother tongue which are more or less
equivalent in meaning to the item being taught. Based on the definition above it can be concluded that vocabulary is total
numbers of words in a language that individual speaker might use to convey their meanings. There are some aspects of vocabulary which are proposed by Ur,
namely: 1 form 2 grammar; 3 collocation; and 4 aspects of meaning
2. Kinds of Vocabulary
Haycraft quoted by Hatch Brown 1978: p.370 divides two kinds of
vocabulary, namely receptive and productive vocabulary.
a. Receptive Vocabulary Receptive vocabulary is words that the learners recognize and understand when
they occur in context, but which cannot produce correctly. It is vocabulary that the learners recognize when they see it in reading context but do not use it in
speaking and writing. The receptive vocabulary is also called a passive process because the learner only receives thought form others. In language application,
the receptive vocabulary is considered as the basic vocabulary. It is much larger than productive vocabulary because there are many words recognized
when the learner hears or reads but do not use when he speaks or writes. b. Productive Vocabulary
Productive Vocabulary is the words, which the learners understand, can pronounce correctly, and use constructively in speaking and writing. It involves
what is needed for receptive vocabulary plus the ability to speak or write the appropriate time. Therefore, productive vocabulary can be addressed as an
active process, because the learners can produced the words to express their thought to others.
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From the explanation above, it can be concluded that there are two kinds of vocabulary: a receptive vocabulary and productive vocabulary. The receptive
vocabulary as the words known when the learner listens and reads. It is also called a passive process because the learner only receives thought from others. In
language application, the receptive vocabulary is considered as the basic vocabulary. Later, productive vocabulary is defined as the words used when the
learner speaks and writes.
3. The Importance of Vocabulary
By having rich vocabulary, students can enrich their listening, speaking, reading, and writing abilities; not only in the way they comprehend but also in the
way they produce language. With these points mentioned above, it is undeniable that vocabulary plays a very important role in the language acquisition. It can be
denied that it will hard to master the language, without mastering or
understanding a certain numbers of vocabularies. Zimmerman in Coady and Huckin 1997: p.5 state that vocabulary is central to language and critical
importance to the typical language learner. McCharty and Schmitt 1997: p.140 state that vocabulary is necessary in every stage of langauge learning. He added
the importance of vocabulary in language learning as follows: No matter how well the students learns grammar, no matter how
successfully sounds of L2 are mastered, without words to express a wider range of meanings, communication in an L2 just cannot happen in any meaningful way.
McCarthy, 1990:viii. Knowing words is the key to understanding and being understood. The
bulk of learning a new language consists of learning new words. Grammatical knowledge does not make for great proficiency in a language. Varmeer, 1992:
147. There are some reasons why vocabulary is taught: 1 Because of the
considerable research about the vocabulary, it informs that vocabulary directed toward useful words can give the learners practice in useful skill; 2 Because a
teacher is faced with the learners who have small vocabulary. The learners wish to go on to academic study a few months and time to get new vocabulary and 3
Because the learners and researchers see vocabulary is very important in learning
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language. The learners feel that many of their difficulties in both receptive and productive language use result from inadequate vocabulary.
4. Vocabulary Test Scoring Rubric
