The Types of Vocabulary

2. The Types of Vocabulary

According to S. H. Burton and Humpries, there are two types of vocabulary used by the people for communication, namely: general and special vocabulary. General vocabulary is all of the words that are used in general; there is no limit of field or users, general in meaning and use. Special vocabulary is all of the words that are used in a certain field or job, profession or special science, for example: politicians, journalists, and lawyers. All these have specialized vocabulary arising from particular circumstances of their lives and work. 9 It means that, there are two types of vocabulary, general and special vocabulary. General vocabulary is all of the words that are used in general; there is no limit of field or users, meaning and use. Special vocabulary is all of the words that are used in a certain field or job, profession, for example: politicians, journalists, and lawyers. While, Jo Ann Aeborsold classifies vocabulary into active and passive vocabulary: a. Active Vocabulary; is also called as productive vocabulary. Students must know how to pronounce the vocabulary well, they must know and be able how to use grammar of the target language, and they also must be familiar with collocation and understand the connotation meaning of the word. This type is often used in speaking and writing skills. b. Passive vocabulary; refers to language items that can be recognized and understood in the context of reading and listening, and it also called as receptive vocabulary. 10 From the statement above, the writer assumes that voacabulary is classified into active and passive. Active vocabulary; is also called as productive vocabulary. Students must know how to pronounce the vocabulary well. Passive vocabulary; is called as receptive vocabulary. 9 S. H. Burton and J. A. Humpries, Mastering English Language London: The Macmillan press, 1992, p. 100 10 Jo Ann Aeborsold and Marry Lee Field, From Reader to Reading Teacher New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997, p. 139 A native speaker of any languge has a much larger passive vocabulary than active vocabulary. As a result, he or she can read difficult material without stopping to use a dictionary all the time. In contrast a person who studies a foreign language, even at the level at the advanced level, quite often has a passive vocabulary. Therefore the biggest singel problem for the advanced student when reading text is poor of passive vocabulary. 11 From the explanations above, it is clear that every aspect in every book is different in classifying the types of vocabulary, because every person has different ways in expressing and telling their opinions and ideas. Some of the experts emphasizes vocabulary into the items which the learners can use appropiately in speaking and writing, and to the language items that can be recognized and understood in the context of reading and listening, little or empty words, content words and cluster of words. Some other experts classify vocabulary into general and special. So, no matter how many experts classify vocabulary into different point of views. However, words are a part of people’s way of living, or words are the instrument of communication in language which are used by people.

3. The Use of Vocabulary