9
CHAPTER II REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
In this chapter, the researcher presents the theoretical description and theoretical framework of the research.
A. Theoretical Description
There are three main points to be described in this section, i.e. vocabulary mastery, word games, and research studies which are relevant to the topic of using
word games to improve vocabulary mastery.
1. Vocabulary Mastery
In order to understand the concept of vocabulary mastery, definition of words and vocabulary knowledge are described as follows.
a. Definition of Words Read describes words as “the basic building block of language, the units of
meaning from which larger structure such as sentences, paragraphs and whole texts are formed” 2000, p. 1. In order to avoid confusion, Read also makes a clear
distinction between words and lexical phrases. He describes lexical phrases as a unit consisting of groups of words which resemble a grammatical structure but “operate as
units with a particular function in spoken or written discourse” Nattinger and DeCarrico, as cited in Read, 2000, p. 22.
10
Words in English can be classified into a number of parts of speech. The number of parts of speech into which words are classified may differ from one
another. However, the majority of experts make clear categorization consisting of eight parts of speech, i.e. nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, prepositions,
conjuctions, and interjections. Knowing which parts of speech a word belongs to may help to understand how the word functions in a sentence. Since some words can be
classified into several parts of speech, most of the time it is important to look at how a word functions in a sentence before determining which part of speech it belongs to.
Related to the level of difficulty of each part of speech, Rodgers as cited in Read, 2000, p. 40 explains that nouns and adjectives are the easiest ones to learn,
while verbs and adverbs are the most difficult ones. His statement is supported by the findings of Ellis and Beaton as cited in Read, 2000, p. 40 which elaborate the reason
why nouns are the easiest one. They explain that it is because most learners are able to quickly form mental images of nouns and relate them to the target words.
b. Vocabulary Knowledge Nation 2000, p. 31 lists a description of knowing a word into having various
receptive and productive knowledge of a word. Receptive knowledge involves the ability of understanding the words through reading or listening activities, while
productive knowledge involves the ability of using and spelling the words meaningfully and correctly in writing or speaking activities. The list provided by
Nation 2000, p. 27 elaborates how the questions of learners possession of the
Kategori