Pinner, R. S. (2016).

Understanding Meaning:
Defining expectations in vocabulary teaching.
Sophia Lingua, 27(1), 61-79.

Understanding Meaning:
Defining Expectations in Vocabulary Teaching

Richard Pinner

Abstract

This paper deals with the question of what it means to ‘know’ a word. It starts
by highlighting the importance of vocabulary in foreign language learning, then
moves on to discuss the factors that affect understanding before moving on to the
central question, examining types of vocabulary knowledge, dividing broadly into
receptive and productive understanding. The paper ends by making some practical
suggestions about how teachers can help learners to acquire a deeper understanding
of the vocabulary acquisition process. Special focus is given to the Japanese context
of foreign language learning, although the research reviewed and suggestions should
also be useful more broadly in the field of second language education and teaching.

Key words: Vocabulary teaching, meaning, lexis, understanding

Introduction

The word ‘word’ is rather problematic for applied linguists. Where does one word
start and another one end? Is traffic-light one word or two? Are phrasal verbs a single
word or a compound? Is ‘been’ and ‘gone’ one word or two? Questions like this
are interpreted differently by different groups; for example, dictionary salespeople
would count ‘been’ and ‘gone’ as two words in order to have a larger figure on their
dictionaries’ number of entries. This is why words are often referred to as lexemes or
lexical items in applied linguistics (Richards & Schmidt, 2013). Understanding words
or lexical items is fundamental to speaking and understanding language. Without
this knowledge it is fair to say we would not be able to communicate or comprehend
anything, either in spoken or written form. Indeed, it has been remarked that we can
understand a sentence with grammar or pronunciation mistakes to an extent, but it is

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much harder to understand if the wrong word is used (Lightbown & Spada, 2006, p.
96). In a poll of ESL students at UCLA, “68 percent […] indicated that they considered
an inadequate vocabulary to be the main single contributor to [comprehension]
problems” (Crow & Quigley, 1985, p. 499). A knowledge of the word system in English
is essential and it also ties other disciplines within language teaching together, for
example morphology, syntax and phonology. Vocabulary teaching, as oppose to
Grammar-based instruction, has found itself gaining prominence again, and is often
seen as an alignment with a more communicative focus on language instruction (see
for example The Lexical Approach Lewis, 1993). Hedge points out that literature on
vocabulary teaching has been marked by a “recurring theme [of] neglect” (2000,
p. 110). And yet the recent interest in vocabulary research has been described as an
“explosion” (Schmitt, 1998, p. 282) and Laufer and Nation (1999, p. 33) remark that
“vocabulary testing is now receiving the attention it deserves.” My own experience
supports this view; when I was working for a major private language school that had
one of the largest university preparation programmes in the UK, in the language
support module of our English for academic purposes (EAP) course we switched
from a grammar based coursebook to one which focuses on vocabulary as our core
text. In Japan, there is also a growing emphasis on vocabulary teaching, as can be
seen in the ministry approved coursebooks and a growing number of publications
focusing on vocabulary acquisition. The Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture,
Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) specifically equated increasing the number
of vocabulary items to be learned with increasing the overall communicative emphasis
on learning (Tahira, 2012). But Japan is also a problematic place for English language
education, with the average TOEIC score in Japan never having exceeding the 500
mark (Yoshida, 2003). MEXT emphasises communicative competence again and
again in The New Course of Study, placing emphasis on the use of English in real-
world situations and promoting the idea of young Japanese taking study abroad trips
for the purpose of improving their English (Yoshida, 2013). So with a strong focus
now on vocabulary it is essential for teachers and applied linguists to have a greater
understanding of the processes involved with lexical semantics and word knowledge.

In this essay I will focus on the nature of understanding lexical items and the

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implications for vocabulary acquisition. Initially I will attempt to define the term
‘understanding’ when we speak about vocabulary teaching. I will also reflect on
some of the theories about lexis and word knowledge. I will then attempt to explain
the components of understanding, especially in terms of what teachers should expect
from our students. The main idea I wish to present in this essay is that there are
two types of understanding – receptive and productive knowledge. Having this as
our focus I believe we can better categorize the necessary processes involved when
understanding a word and being able to use it as part of a second language (L2)
lexicon. This will help us to create activities and conduct assessment more suitably.
Levels of knowledge, learning burden and a scale of teaching expectations will all be
discussed. Finally, I will make some suggestions for applying what we know about
understanding to the classroom.

Factors affecting understanding

In this section I will look at some of the theories surrounding understanding. Many
semantic theories bring up questions about cross-cultural understanding, and I
believe it is best to have these ideas in our minds when we define our expectations of
‘understanding’ in terms of second language acquisition.

One interesting theory surrounding understand is Componential Analysis, which

focuses on the minimal semantic units contained within a word. For example:

Male female

Adult man woman

Young boy girl

Human

 Leech (1974)

Thus boy = Male + Young + Human, and Woman = Female + Adult + Human

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This mathematical or formulaic reduction of language seeks to isolate the minimal

semantic units or the simplest unit of meaning, thus making it easier to conceptualise
how vocabulary is learned, stored and accessed. The problem is we do not have
an adequate set of binary semantic units – we do not always know when to stop
breaking the units down or even how to break them. However, as a way of concept
checking early vocabulary acquisition it has immediately apparent benefits in that we
can explain new lexical items with a simple set of initial vocabulary. Prototype theory,
also has advantages for teachers and text book writers, as long as we can identify the
prototype. In studies it has been shown that people have certain lexical prototypes
for collective words such as ‘bird’ or ‘furniture’ which encompass multiple other
words (Rosch, 1973, 1975). It was found that certain words have ideal or prototypical
referents which seem to hold true for a certain culture with only slight discrepancy
across different speakers. For example, the robin or the sparrow are commonly
thought to represent ‘good’ examples for the word bird. Despite this, the limits for
teaching are clear because more complex concepts such as ‘irony’ or ‘intransient’ are
virtually impossible to represent visually in a single image. Componential analysis
and Prototype theory are certainly interesting and can shed light on the way words and
meanings are understood in the brain, but they seem to be limited to basic concepts
and as such it is hard to see their usefulness beyond very basic level teaching.

Hadley offers the model of Cultural Prototypes, which argues that there are levels
of semantic knowledge related to cultural aspects of language. It is a useful scale to
see how initially we might start teaching with basic semantic units and then move
up the pyramid. So, a teacher or learner or even course of study should begin with
only the core meaning and eventually move up to more complex and metaphorical
uses of words.

Another useful concept to bear in mind when considering lexical semantics and
what ‘understanding’ means is The Sapir-Whorf Theory, usually referred to today
as the theories of Linguistic Determinism (strong) and Linguistic Relativity (weak),
which have been much contended (Kramsch, 1998; Steiner, 1975). These ideas posit
that speakers of different languages have different views of the world, and that

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Hadley (1997, p. 489)

language effects world-view. Konishi (1993) conducted tests on speakers of German

and Spanish (both gender marking languages) into the connotative and associative
meanings of certain words. The findings proved a disparity between the languages
where the word was in a different grammatical gender class, which lends something
to the theory that each culture has its own different version of word knowledge,
especially connotational aspects. A large bank of research of this nature has been
done on colour perception and naming. For instance, Davies, Sowden, Jerrett, Jertett,
and Corbett (1998) looked at colour triads and noted that “there are small, but reliable
differences” across speakers of different languages in the way the test subjects,
in this case English and Setswana speakers, perceived and labelled colours. Thus,
the Whorfian theory that “we cut nature up, organize it into concepts, and ascribe
significances [through and agreement] codified in the patterns of our language” (1940,
pp. 213-214) has been an important tool in understanding the way we use language and
perceive concepts and meaning. However I feel it is also true that “we are not prisoners
of our linguistic systems” (Fromkin, Rodman, and Hyams, 2001, p. 27). Hence it is
possible to learn and express concepts, even those which are quite culture specific,
in L2. One example is my own acquisition of the Japanese expression otsukaresama.
In English this is sometimes translated as ‘good job’ or even just ‘thanks’, but it has

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many more applications and connotations than these English renderings can convey.
Also, in the course of my studying Japanese I came to distinguish the meanings of
tired and sleepy. Until I learned the words in Japanese, I had believed them to mean
the same things, but now I often talk about being ‘tired but not sleepy’ as I have come
to separate the two words in English because they have a more pronounced difference
in meaning in Japanese. These examples illustrate how the mind and first language
are influenced by the acquisition of new words or concepts from the second language.

An interrelated aspect to learning words from another language is what Nation (2001)
has termed “learning burden”. How do we rate the difficulty any given learner will
have when acquiring new units for their mental lexicon? When teaching vocabulary
perhaps we need to be aware of cross-cultural semantic differences, similarities from
L1 to L2, phonological and orthographic differences and of course the frequency (also
suggesting usefulness) of the word or lexical item. How should a deeper knowledge
of this influence vocabulary instruction in ELT? How can we help learners retain this
knowledge? I will address these questions in the Applications section of this essay.

Knowing a Word

Words are not isolated units of language, but fit into many interlocking systems
and levels. Because of this, there are many things to know about any particular
word and there are many degrees of knowing
 Nation (2001, p. 23)

I understand the word ‘understand’ and when I read it or hear it I instantly know
what is meant. I am able to use the word myself in sentences and in writing (as I am
doing in this essay). However, in terms of language teaching we need to clarify what
we mean by ‘understanding’ so that we can define our intentions and expectations
when teaching lexical items. It seems inadequate to think of words as known/
unknown (Laufer & Nation, 1999; Schmitt, 1998) but in levels of understanding.
Although they are useful tools, word lists such as the General Service List (West,
1953) and even the Vocabulary Size Test (Meara & Buxton, 1987), based on corpora

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and selected for frequency, are of little use on their own when assessing vocabulary
knowledge or designing a lexical curriculum, if we look at vocabulary in these binary
terms (Carter & McCarthy, 1988, pp. 7-8; Laufer, 1998, p. 257). Current trends in
vocabulary pedagogy and assessment focus on dimensions of word knowledge (Carter
& McCarthy, 1988; Nation, 2001; Schmitt, 1998). A pioneer in this approach was Jack
C Richards (1976), who put forward eight assumptions about word knowledge, which
were really criteria for full word knowledge. These were:

1. First languages are continually adding to their vocabulary through adulthood

but syntax is not greatly developed. From this we can infer that vocabulary
acquisition is an ongoing, non-finite process both in L1 and L2.
Knowing a word means -
2. also knowing the frequency of words and their likely collocates
3. being aware of the functional and situational limitations that apply
4. knowledge of the “syntactic behaviour”
5. derivational forms and word class
6. associative and connotative knowledge
7. s emantic value – breaking down words into minimal units as with
componential analysis - see Katz and Fodor (1963) or Leech (1974)
8. knowing the other (possible) meanings associated
 Richards (1976, pp. 77-89)

Although Richards’ eight points are very important and provide a good starting point
for L2 understanding vocabulary acquisition, the list lumps together both productive
and receptive types of knowledge, although as I have mentioned before, these are
two very distinct types of knowing. In addition the assumptions are set at having a
highly proficient level of understanding which even in L1 we may not possess for all
the words we ‘know.’ Nation developed a further set of components and argues again
that knowing a word in full depends on a range of criteria broken into three kinds
of knowledge; Form, Meaning and Use each comprised of receptive and productive
components.

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Nation (2001, p. 27)

I agree with the current trend in vocabulary research and theory that for the
purposes of ELT pedagogy we need to be aware of receptive and productive types of
understanding and the components of each should be defined and assessed separately
(Crow & Quigley, 1985; Laufer, Elder, Hill, & Congdon, 2004; Nation & Coady, 1988;
Schmitt, 1998). However, these criteria clearly show that a great deal is expected of the
learner in order to fully understand the meaning of a word. In the next section I will
attempt to break down these criteria slightly in order to better assess our expectations
within language teaching and thus pass on this knowledge to learners.

Two Types of Understanding

In the following sections I will attempt to define understanding using components set
out by Richards and Nation as a framework. I believe we need to further divide the
criteria of understanding into workable receptive and productive categories. I hope
that by doing so we can explain what we expect from learners during vocabulary
acquisition without presenting them with too daunting a task.

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 Understanding Meaning: Defining expectations in vocabulary teaching

Receptive Understanding

For our purposes we will assume that first the receptive understanding of a word
is acquired and then after taking deeper root in the lexicon joins the productive
vocabulary because the productive use of lexical items requires receptive plus
additional knowledge (Laufer, 1998, pp. 256-257) and in order to reside within the
students’ lexicon the word or lexical item must be contained receptively in at least
one manner. This suggests that at least one of the possible concepts or referents
must be known. However, Webb (2008) has noted instances of students using words
productively without a full receptive knowledge.

Following is a breakdown of what we might expect an L2 speaker to know in order

to comprise receptive knowledge.

Semantic recognition
In order to understand a word we must know, as a minimum, the general concept
or referent. Richards puts forward in his assumptions that breaking words into a
“minimal set of semantic features” (1976, p. 82), as we saw with componential analysis
or prototype theory, is a good way of analysing word meaning that might have cross
cultural connotational varieties.

Textual recognition
Students must recognise the word as it is orthographically defined. In order to do
this a knowledge of the writing system and spelling is essential. This of course only
applies to written work, and is of higher relevance to English for Academic purposes
as well as English for business communication where much of the exposure to the
language is textual.

Phonological recognition
Students should recognise the word when they hear it. This is complicated more and
more in contemporary society by the burgeoning number of World Englishes and the
use of English as a Lingua Franca, which means that speakers of English are more

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likely to hear a wider range of pronunciations and possible variations of words across
different speakers of English (Dewey & Jenkins, 2010; Jenkins, 2002).

Syntactic recognition
Syntactical understanding is a factor in individual lexical items; words are not separate
units when placed in a sentence. Therefore knowing a word requires an understanding
of its individual syntactic behaviour. This also relates to context and collocation,
which Nation and Coady (1988) argue is a key issue in acquiring word meaning.

Morphological recognition
A basic understanding of morphemes is essential, especially those that carry
meaning (un-, pre-) or show tense (-ed, -en). Words that are irregular or have various
derivational forms cause much more of a problem for the learner. In teaching we
should exercise caution, however much of the behaviour of morphemes is regular.
In teaching them separately and explaining how they work we may well improve a
learners’ ability to comprehend new or unfamiliar words (Nation, 2001, pp. 269-275;
Nattinger, 1988, p. 63).

Productive Understanding

Productive understanding requires, in principal, all the above mentioned receptive

components. “A word that can be correctly used should also be understood by the
user, when heard, seen or both” (Laufer, 1998, p. 257). It is then, by definition, the
more demanding of the two types of understanding and the last to be attained. Studies
into this discrepancy have revealed different figures (Schmitt, 2008, p. 345), but all
conclude that a significant difference between the two types of knowing persist.
Exactly why there exists such a gap is still elusive (Nation, 2001), however we will
see some of the possible reasons in the following section.

Semantic rendering - concept, referent & connotation

Users must know the concept and/or reference of the word they are using. A parrot can
reproduce phonologically complex sounds that resemble words from human language,

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but they do not understand the semantics and it could not be argued that they ‘know’
those words. The same is true of a speaker repeating sounds drilled by a teacher
without fully knowing the concept or referent, as with controlled production (Laufer
& Nation, 1999). The user must also know something of the connotative meaning of
the word. If I try on a pair of trousers and am told that I am too fat for them by the staff
I would make a complaint, but if the staff member explains the trousers are tight I am
not likely to be offended although the effect of the utterance is the same. This relates
to socio-cultural competence and politeness, which are broader terms within language
teaching that have direct implications to teaching and learning as well, providing
further argument for a move away from instruction which is purely grammar-based.

Textual Rendering
It is necessary that the spelling or more accurately the orthographic rendering (and of
course writing system for doing so) be familiar enough to create a textual rendering
of the word that could be understood by others. However, a word could be argued to
be known and understood by a user if there are only minor deviations in the spelling.
For example, I often misspell “necessarily” but that does not necessarily mean I do
not know exactly what it means and how to use it. Laufer and Nation (1999) when
testing the size of controlled productive vocabulary, did not account for incorrect
orthographic (or derivational) forms for their data whereas Schmitt (1998) used a
four point grading system for spelling in his longitudinal research of vocabulary
knowledge depth. For assessment purposes I believe the grading system is much
more accurate.

Phonological rendering
A student must be able to produce the sounds for them to be understood by others.
Fluency is not an issue here, and it would be expected that the first time the word is
uttered it would be slower and harder to use than after many uses. As with textual
rendering, we could argue that small deviations from the accepted norm can be taken
into account, but the word must be recognisable (Jenkins, 2000, 2002).

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Richard Pinner

Syntax, collocation & word class

The student would have to know which words collocate with a given word or lexical
unit in order to provide a meaningful sentence. There are many complexities when
dealing with certain words. For example “give” which is ditransitive and takes the
form VP [ditrans] + iO + dO or VP [ditrans] + dO + iO (Thomas, 1993)1 as in “I gave
the keys to John” or “I gave John the keys.”

You cannot say “I gave John” or “I gave it” the way we can say “I ate an apple” or
“I ate it.” We cannot say we know the word unless we also know how to place it in
a sentence and how it effects the words around it and the other words that can be
associated with it.

Morphology
Some knowledge of the “derivational forms” (Richards, 1976) or patterns of use is a
necessary component in productive understanding. As with spelling we might wish
to allow for deviations or inconsistencies.

1. dO = direct object iO = indirect object

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Applications: expectations and teaching priorities

As we can see, there is a great deal involved in knowing a word. These components
add up to full word knowledge, but should we really expect our learners to possess all
of these levels of knowledge? In my view without all the above components in place
learners will struggle to get an adequate mastery of the words for productive use.
Due to the various components of understanding, as teachers we may want to be
aware how each component ties in with the others. The idea of incidental vocabulary
acquisition, as with Krashen’s Input Hypothesis (1989), suggests large numbers of
words can be acquired with relatively little cognitive effort. However, there is so much
to know about any given lexical unit that research examining such incidental learning
through copious reading (Horst, Cobb, & Meara, 1998) show that it is unlikely to yield
what we have established as a full knowledge of a word. The application of learning
theories such as the Involvement Load Hypothesis (Laufer & Hulstijn, 2001), which
account for productive use in acquisition, are far more likely to enable our students to
acquire an understanding of the words we set out to teach and learn. Many studies in
vocabulary are focused now on retention, longevity and involvement (Keating, 2008;
Laufer et al., 2004), and this is also an area for consideration in language teaching.
In Japan, educational reforms are seeing the promulgation of Content and Language
Integrated Learning (CLIL) as a vehicle for improving foreign language education and
meeting MEXT’s lofty requirements (Ikeda, Pinner, Mehisto, & Marsh, 2013; Izumi,
Watanabe, & Ikeda, 2012; Watanabe, Ikeda, & Izumi, 2011), and this has implication
for vocabulary instruction. One example of this would be the use of specific corpora
to facilitate vocabulary learning in specific content areas. Wordlists which are subject-
specific and provide content-based vocabulary items would be an invaluable area for
further research (Watanabe, 2013).

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Richard Pinner
Please replace diagram on pg 14 with the following list 

1) Receptive Understanding 

a) Semantic recognition 

i) Basic concept or referent 

ii) Positive, negative or neutral aspect – connotational knowledge  

b) Phonological recognition 

c) Textual recognition 

d) Syntactic knowledge  

e) Morphological recognition 

2) Productive Understanding 

a) Semantic rendering 

i) At least one full possible conceptual meaning or referent 

ii) Connotative elements of meaning such as positive, negative or neutral and 

strength of association 

b) Phonological rendering 

c) Textual rendering 

d) Syntactic knowledge 

Morphological rendering 

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 Understanding Meaning: Defining expectations in vocabulary teaching

Below is a summary of some of the important points for learners and teachers to
consider:

• Context is key to unlocking word meaning and observing words with their
natural collocates and syntactic behaviour.
• It might be wise for teachers to devise a scale for semantic recognition for
individual lexical items while teaching. Conceptual understanding and semantic
knowledge are important for both receptive and productive knowledge.
• I n my view, learners should be given guidance for organising their own
vocabulary. They should also be encouraged to find their own optimum way
of reviewing the words they are trying to acquire.
• Learning Burden is a consideration when approaching vocabulary teaching,
however this, like much in the field of lexis, is variable according to cultural
factors, L1 similarity or difference and frequency/usefulness.
• Syntactic knowledge is vital. The ability to recognise word class as well as
collocational possibilities.
• Morphological knowledge can hold keys to unlocking unfamiliar words.
Despite this, it may add much to the learning burden as we are not sure if the
words are treated as new words or derivations. Morphological information for
regular words could be taught separately in order to aid receptive understanding
and dealing with new words.

Conclusion

Most researchers today agree that one’s approach to vocabulary instruction must
be based upon active or passive2 needs of the students.
 Crow and Quigley (1985, p. 499)

There are of course limitations in the receptive/productive approach to lexical

acquisition. Laufer and Nation (1999) break productive understanding down into

2. Here active refers to productive and passive refers to receptive knowledge of vocabulary.

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Richard Pinner

free productive ability and controlled productive ability, arguing the latter comes from
elicitation but is not fully ‘known’ productively. Another limitation is that productive
and receptive ability can be further separated into the four skills (speaking, writing,
reading, listening) which each have rather different aspects to word knowledge within
them. This being said, I believe it best to keep the number of our expectations down
to a level that we can pass on to language teachers and of course students. Making
students aware of these issues can help them to develop metacognitive strategies and
to set attainable goals for dealing with vocabulary in a foreign language.

Full word knowledge implies a great deal of proficiency with any given word, yet of
course we do not speak in isolated words but in sentences. Whilst we cannot expect
our students to gain a productive knowledge of all the words they come to learn,
we can try to bridge the gap between receptive and productive knowledge by using
scales of knowledge testing and avoiding the trap of thinking of vocabulary in terms
of known/unknown. When teaching vocabulary we might want to define our goals
and expectations which can then be passed on to the learner directly.

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