English I

Lecture 2

Vocabulary learning

English Department, SU Wednesday Sept.4, 2019

HT19 Alan McMillion
 Aims of this lecture

1. Present some reasons why systematic

vocabulary learning is important
2. Present some data concerning
vocabulary types and their distribution
3. Briefly try some vocabulary learning
methods
 Why should we study vocabulary
learning?

1. To gain some understanding of the processes

involved in vocabulary learning and use.
(Theoretical)

2. Thereby, to be able to improve our vocabulary

learning effectiveness (Practical)
 First year biology students at Stockholm U and Edinburgh U
60

50

40

30

20

10

Reading Comprehension Vocabulary (size) RT Word recognition

L1 L2 High L2 low
 Some take-aways

1. Reading comprehension correlates highly

with vocabulary size
2. Word recognition speed might be a result
of the amount of exposure (automatized),
i.e. how much reading/listening you do.
 Some Psycholinguistic Issues

1. How does a language user’s vocabulary

size relate to comprehension?

2. What is involved in word recognition?

3. How is word knowledge stored?

4. What differences are there between L1

and L2 vocabularies?
1. To what extent does a language user’s
vocabulary size relate to comprehension?

To a great extent (r>~0.6)

A high correlation has been found in

many studies between vocabulary
size and comprehension.
2. What is involved in word recognition?

Many cues help us to locate word

meanings (context, preceding words,
spelling, shape, etc.).

The recognition process is very fast, ca.

250 ms per word when reading L1 texts
(i.e. roughly 3-4 words / second).
3. How is word knowledge stored?

Apparently, different aspects of word

knowledge are stored in various
locations in the brain.

For example, we can sometimes

access meaning without accessing
the form (tip of the tongue
experience).
 4. What processing differences are
there between L1 and L2 vocabularies?

Apparently, for advanced users of a second

language, vocabulary knowledge and access
do not differ very much from L1 vocabulary
knowledge and access (concepts associate
directly with L2 words).

For L2 beginners, many L2 words seem to go

via L1 words.
 Some take-aways
3. L1 and advanced L2 users seem to access
vocabulary in the same way.
4. Different aspects of words (meaning and
forms) are stored in different brain locations.
5. An L1 reader can recognize, access, and
further process about 3-4 words per second.
What is a word?
• Types versus tokens

• Lexemes

• Word families
 Tokens and types
• In the following sentence, there are 13
tokens and 7 types.

The money is in the safe and

the safe is in the office.
 Lexemes
• The basic, non-inflected form of a word, or
the abstracted underlying form/meaning of
a word, where the inflected forms share
the same basic meaning.

walk, walks, walked, walking  walk

leave, leaves, left, leaving  leave
 Inflection vs. derivation
• Inflectional morphemes indicate a
grammatical function of the word:
– sisters more than one sister
– laughs 3 sg present tense
– came past form of come

• Derivational morphemes primarily create

new words via affixation
– Usually change the word class
– happy > happiness (ADJ > NOUN), but
– weapon > weaponry; kind > unkind
 Affixation: prefixes
amoral antisocial arch-enemy
cooperate denote disagree
exclaim extra-high hypersensitive
injustice interfere macrochange
malcontent mega-hit microwave
minibar misconduct neo-conservative
non-trivial outwit (outgutter) overreact
post-election preschool pro-life
re-entry semi-skilled sublease
super-cool transatlantic ultra-slim
unleash under-achieve
 Affixation: suffixes
readable voltage referral Brazilian
defendant classification officialdom escapee
New Yorker crookery Cantonese Kafkaesque
actress kitchenette crab-fashion fistful
widowhood Israeli poetic junkie
beautify scaffolding inhibition criminalise
snobbish Bushism Buddhist Trotskyite
laryngitis reality defensive odourless
charmingly deferment toughness weirdo
actor envious gadgetry friendship
southward streetwise doggy
 Some take-aways
6. In the phrase in the box in the fridge
there are 6 tokens and 4 types
7. A lexeme can be thought of as an
abstract base form of a word.
8. Inflectional suffixes are generally
grammatical markers.
 Word Families
Verb Noun Adjective Adverb
adjust adjustment adjustable
adjusted
appropriate appropriateness appropriate appropriately
inappropriate
assume assumption assuming assumingly

dispose disposal disposable

illustrate illustration illustrative illustratively

modify modification modified

modifiability modifiable
 Types of Vocabulary

1. High frequency (2000 word families)

2. Academic words (570 wfs)

3. Technical words

4. Low frequency
 Some facts about vocabularies
• Number of words in a language
>100,000 wfs
• Number of words in a language user
ca. 20,000+ wfs
• How do different languages compare in
number of words?
English: 114,000 wfs
Swedish: possibly slightly less, but
difficult to assess.
Time for a Break?
 Word parts

• Phonological features

• Orthographic form

• Syntactic features

• Semantic features
 Learning Burden
• Different words have

different learning burdens

for different learners

• The more one knows, the lighter the burden.

• Knowledge comes from:

L1, L2, L3s, and from following known regularity

patterns
 Some take-aways
9. English may contain roughly 100 000 words,
while a typical native speaker may know 30
000 words
10.According to several studies, academic
vocabulary account for about 10% of the
vocabulary of academic texts.
 Coverage by text type
(Table 1.7 in Nation, p. 17)

Academic
Levels Conversation Fiction Newspapers
texts

1st 1000 84.3 82.3 75.6 73

2nd 1000 6 (90.3) 5.1 (87.4) 4.7 (80.3) 4.5 (78)

Academic 1.9 1.7 3.9 9.5

Other 7.8 10.9 15.7 13

Active vocabulary Passive vocabulary
Productive Receptive
speaking listening
writing reading

Process: Process:
meaning-to-form form-to-meaning
Practice Practice
finding words finding meanings
X___________________________________X
scale
 Collocations (Huntley p. 7)
Nouns Verbs Adjectives
carry out, do, make, perform, careful, brief, detailed, theoretical,
analysis conduct economic, financial

gain, reap, obtain, receive, considerable, enormous, great,

benefit provide, offer major, economic, maximum,
substantial
understand, define, formulate, general, basic, simple, theoretical,
concept introduce, develop scientific, economic, intellectual

collect, gather, store, record, accurate, statistical, numerical,

data analyze, study, process, environmental, financial, economic
interpret
find, provide, come up with, complicated, simple, correct,
formula discover, use mathematical, scientific, successful,
traditional
 Some take-aways
11.Active vocabulary knowledge involves
going from meaning to form.
12.Passive vocabulary knowledge involves
going from form to meaning.
13.Collocations are words that often co-
occur with another word.
14.The first 1000 most frequent words cover
as much as 70% of everday vocabulary.
 Some conclusions
• The first few thousand word types (in terms of
frequency) cover about 75% of running words in an
average text, after this there is a ’diminishing
returns’ effect.
• The AWL covers about 10% of academic texts.
• Strategies for working out the meanings of
unknown words can be helpful and efficient.
• Different kinds of knowledge require different kinds
of learning.
 There are two key
concepts involved in
vocabulary learning:
1. Repetition

2. A lot of appropriate
level reading
(>95% of the words, ~not more than
ca. 5-10 new words per page)
 Vocabulary learning strategies

1. Strategies for regular vocabulary learning

sessions (new words and repetition of ’old’
words)

2. Strategies for dealing with newly encountered

words in context
a. using context
b. checking quesses
Vocabulary learning sessions

– Choosing words
– Choosing aspects of word knowledge
(productive or receptive)
– Choosing strategies (e.g. Cards, lists,
programs, using translations (L1), images
and associations, etc.)
– Planning repetition
 Vocabulary learning sessions

• Word lists (with meanings and examples)

• Word card strategy
• Various computer aids
• Exercises (in vocabulary workbooks)
Vocabulary learning sessions

• Word card strategy

– Definition in mother tongue
– Learn first receptively and then
productively
– Change order of the cards
– Say the word aloud
 Newly encountered vocabulary
while reading
• Guessing from context strategy: 5 step
process
• Step 1. Decide on the part of speech of the
unknown word
• Step 2. Look at the immediate context of the word,
simplify grammatically if necessary
• Step 3. Look at the wider context of the word that
is the relationship with adjoining sentences or
clauses
• Step 4. Guess

• Step 5. Check the guess.

 Some take-aways
15.Word card strategies are good for
learning both active and passive
vocabulary items.
16.Seeing a new word form in context,
quessing the meaning, and then checking
it is an effective learning method.
17.When learning from lists, the number of
repetitions necessary for learning new
words varies, perhaps 5-20, depending
on the individual’s previous knowledge.
 The Academic Word List
• Consists of 570 word families
• Is organized into 10 frequency bands
• Each band contains 60 wfs, except the 10th which has
30.
• Link: http://www.academicvocabularyexercises.com/

• There are books for learning the AWL:

– Essential Academic Vocabulary. Helen Huntley. 2006
– Focus on Vocabulary. Diane and Norbert Schmitt. 2005
– Check Your Vocabulary for Academic English. David Porter.
2008.
 An exercise from
Focus on Vocabulary
1. eliminate .
a a number of related events that happen again and
again in the same order

2. allocate b. a period of ten years

3. decade c. parts equal to a particular number in every 100 parts

4. administrative d. to get rid of

5. percent e. related to the work of managing or organizing

a company or institution

6. trace f. to find the origins of something

7. cycle g. to decide officially that a particular amount of

something should be used for a particular
purpose
 General English Vocabulary
• Extensive reading should provide considerable
exposure to appropriate vocabulary.
• This term we will use a list of 220 words (SAT
level) for the exam.
• Keep a vocabulary notebook with new words and
meanings/translations. Review these words
REGULARLY.
• Many downloadable vocabulary learning programs
work well, IF YOU USE THEM REGULARLY.
 Some take-aways
18.The AWL consists of about 570 word
families, ca. 3000 words.
19.The AWL is fixed and not continually
updated, but for academic pursuits it is
worth while learning.
20.The vocabulary section of the exam is
based on a list of about 220 SAT level
words (the list is available on Mondo).
 Vocabulary Workshops
Tomorrow (Thursday) and Friday in
B4/D499

Next Lecture: Grammar 1:

Introduction & Word classes
Monday Sept. 9
10.00 – 12.00, Lecture hall A2