Vocabulary Knowledge Definition of Terms

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2. Vocabulary Knowledge

Richards 1976: 77­89 cited in Mukarto 2005: 152 proposed several aspects on assumption of vocabulary knowledge. According to Richards, knowing a word means: 1. knowing its relative frequency and its collocation 2. knowing the limitation imposed on its use 3. knowing its syntactic behavior 4. knowing its basic forms and derivations 5. knowing its association with other words 6. knowing its semantic value 7. knowing many of the different meanings associated with the words Nation 1990: 31 adopted Richards’ assumption of word knowledge; he added the receptive and productive knowledge and several other considerations and reorganized them. Form Spoken form R what does the word sound like? P how is the word pronounced? Written form R what does the word look like? P how is the word written and spelled Position Grammatical position R in what patterns does the word occur? P in what patterns must we used the word? Collocation R what words and types of words could we express before and after the word? 10 P what words or types of words must we use with this word? Position Frequency R how common is the word? P how often should the word be used? Appropriateness R where would we expect to find this word? P where could this word be used? Meaning Concept R what does the word mean? P what word should be used to express this meaning? Association R what other words does this word make us think of? P what other words could we use instead of this one? Figure 2.1: Components of word knowledge Nation, 1990: 31 Some other researchers proposed some notions on the vocabulary knowledge: a. Real and Potential Vocabulary Knowledge Gass 1994: 272 suggests that learners appear to have differing degrees of knowledge of their second language lexicon. She differentiates between potential vocabulary and real vocabulary. Potential vocabulary consists of words a learner would recognize even though they have yet to be seen in the second language. Common scientific and technological terms, for example, in the economic, medical, technique, and physics, would be the examples of potential vocabulary. Real vocabulary consists of words the learner is familiar with after and because of exposure. The examples would be the vocabularies learned in the shool, or learned by reading. 11 b. Active productive and Passive receptive Vocabulary Knowledge Another distinction is between passive receptive vocabulary knowledge and active productive vocabulary knowledge. Passive or receptive vocabulary knowledge is the matter of word recognition Gass, 1994: 375. Nation 1990 states that passive vocabulary knowledge includes the ability to distinguish a word from words with a similar form and being able to judge if the word form sounds right or look right. The knowledge involves having some expectation of the words that it would collocate with. Knowing a word in this knowledge includes being able to recall its meaning when we meet it. It also includes being able to see which shade of meaning is most suitable for the context that it occurs in. In addition, knowing the meaning of a word may include being able to make various associations with other related words. On the other hand, active or productive vocabulary knowledge involves knowing how to pronounce the word, how to write it and spell it, how to use it in correct grammatical pattern along with the words it usually collocates with. Active vocabulary knowledge is the extension of passive vocabulary knowledge. Active or productive vocabulary knowledge also involves not using the word too often if it a typically a low­frequency word, and using it in the suitable situations. It involves using the word to stand for the meaning it represents and being able to think of suitable substitutes if any. Laufer and Paribakht 1998 cited in Gass, 1994: 375 investigated three types of vocabulary knowledge, which are passive, controlled active, and free active. Passive knowledge involves understanding the most frequent meaning of a word. Controlled active involves cued recall e.g. a test item might include The railway con____ the city with it suburbs, where the first few letters of a word are 12 included to eliminate other possibilities. Free active knowledge involves spontaneous use of the word. According to Laufer and Paribakht, these three knowledge types developed at different rates. Passive vocabulary knowledge is the fastest while active particularly free active vocabulary knowledge is the slowest. In addition, passive vocabulary is always larger than active vocabulary, although there is a difference between learners in a foreign language setting and those in a second language setting. The gap between knowledge types is smaller in the foreign language setting, suggesting a strong role for the environment in learning Gass, 1994: 375. c. Breadth and Depth of Vocabulary Knowledge Breadth of vocabulary knowledge is defined as vocabulary size, or the number of words for which a learner has at least some minimum knowledge of meaning Qian, 1999. There are two ways to see how many words a second language learner needs. One way is to look at the vocabulary of the native speakers of English and consider that as a goal for second language learners. The other way is to look at the results of frequency counts and the practical experience of second language teaching and researchers and decide how much vocabulary is needed for particular activities. Depth of vocabulary knowledge is defined as a learners level of knowledge of various aspects of a given word, or how well the learner knows this word. Mukarto 2005: 156 affirms that depth of vocabulary knowledge covers the depth and breadth of meaning dimension of a given word. The depth of meaning refers to the knowledge of both syntactic and semantic features that constitutes the core 13 meaning of a word while the breadth of meanings refers to the multiple meaning senses of a word.

3. L2 Lexical Development