5 According to Webster‟s New International Dictionary 1966: 2650,
“vocabulary is a sum or stock of words employed by a language, group, individual, in
a work in relation to a subject.” From some definitions of vocabulary above, the writer concludes that
vocabulary is the number of words that is known and used by people.
2.2.1.2. Elements of Vocabulary
In teaching vocabulary, they are some needs to be taught. According to Ur 2006: 60, there are at least six needs in teaching vocabulary to be need:
1 Form: pronunciation and spelling
Pronunciation is what a word sounds like and spelling is what it looks like. 2
Grammar An item may have an unpredictable change of form in certain grammatical
contexts. For example, we might give also its past form eat, ate, or we may wish to present its plural form when teaching noun mouse, mice.
3 Collocation
According to Cambridge, collocation is a word or phrase which is often used with another word or phrase, in a way that sounds correct to people
who have spoken the language all their lives, but might not be expected from the meaning. For example,
„she has a beige car‟ but not „she has beige hair‟; and „she has blond hair‟ but not „she has a blond car‟. So the
word „beige‟ collocates with „car‟ and „blond‟ collocates with „hair‟.
„beige‟ and „blond‟ have same meaning, it is sejenis warna abu-abu dan coklat
4 Denotation, connotation, and appropriateness
Denotation is the meaning of word which is primarily what it refers to in the real world rose: a kind of flowers; a garden plant with thorns on its
stems and pleasant-smelling flowers. Connotation the associations, or positive or negative feelings it evokes, which may or may not be indicated
in a dictionary definition flower connotes women. Whereas, appropriateness is more subtle aspect of meaning; suitable or right for a
particular situation or occasion. 5
Meaning relationships -
Synonyms : items that mean the same, or nearly the same big, huge, large
- Antonyms : items that mean the opposite diligent is an antonym of
lazy -
Hyponyms : items that serve as specific example of a general concept rose, jasmine, orchid are hyponyms of flower
- Co-hyponyms or co-ordinates : other items that are the „same kind of
thing‟; red, blue, green and brown are co-ordinates 6
Word formation Word-formation refers to understanding morphemes of a word; at least a
word consists of one freestanding morpheme McCarthy, 2003: 6. For example, the word
„writing‟ consists of a freestanding element „write‟ and a non-freestanding element
„-ing‟.
