Researching And Analyzing Vocabulary

Written for researchers and graduate students in the field of vocabulary studies, Researching and Analyzing Vocabulary covers a wide range of vocabulary research topics that include experimental, qualitative, and corpus-based work. The study of vocabulary has direct implications for teaching and learning while enhancing student knowledge of research practices.

Understanding vocabulary and its role in language learning is one of the central tasks of applied linguistic research. It is also an area that has seen, and continues to see, huge progress in terms of the complexity and diversity of work being done. While this makes for a rich and exciting research scene, it can also make the task of developing vocabulary research skills a daunting one as specialist subfields develop ever more sophisticated concepts and methods. This book aims to give readers an understanding of the area that is both detailed and rounded by introducing them to understanding and doing vocabulary research from four key perspectives: corpus linguistics, psycholinguistics, language testing, and teaching and learning. Within each area, a state-of-the-art review describes fundamental concepts and commonly used methods, evaluates ongoing methodological debates, and points to areas for future development. It aims both to give readers a solid grounding in the specialized methods and debates associated with each area and to build connections across these specializations, considering points of contact and ways in which they can work together.

The book overviews a wide range of vocabulary research methodologies, and offers practical advice on how to carry out valid and reliable research on first and second language vocabulary. It includes a Resources section which outlines the lexical tests, corpora, software, internet sites, and other resources available to vocabulary researchers.

This guide to vocabulary acquisition is essential reading for teachers of English as a second or foreign language. It presents the major ideas and principles that relate to the teaching and learning of vocabulary and evaluates a wide range of practical activities designed to help boost students’ vocabulary acquisition. Key questions which are answered include: • How many words should students learn at a time, and how often? • How much classroom time should be spent teaching vocabulary? • What is the best way to group vocabulary for learning? • Is it useful to provide students with the L1 translations of unknown words? • Why do some students make greater progress than others? stuart webb is Professor in Applied Linguistics at the University of Western Ontario, Canada. paul nation is Emeritus Professor in Applied Linguistics at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Teachers will find answers to many of their perennial questions about vocabulary learning—as well as some they had not yet thought to ask! There is research evidence to support established practices, but also new evidence that challenges old ideas. patsy lightbown (co-author of How Languages are Learned, with Nina Spada)

This book introduces an innovative collection of easy-to-use computer programs that have been developed to measure and model vocabulary knowledge. The book aims to help researchers discover new instruments for lexical analysis, and provides a theoretical framework in which studies with such tools could be conducted. Each of the programs comes with a short manual explaining how to use the program, an example of a published paper that uses the program and a set of questions that readers can develop into proper projects. The programs can be used in real research projects and have the potential to break new ground for research in L2 vocabulary acquisition. The book will be of great use to final year undergraduates and masters students in applied linguistics, second language acquisition, psycholinguistics and language testing and to PhD students doing research methods courses.

This highly regarded work brings together prominent authorities on vocabulary teaching and learning to provide a comprehensive yet concise guide to effective instruction. The book showcases practical ways to teach specific vocabulary words and word-learning strategies and create engaging, word-rich classrooms. Instructional activities and games for diverse learners are brought to life with detailed examples. Drawing on the most rigorous research available, the editors and contributors distill what PreK-8 teachers need to know and do to support all students' ongoing vocabulary growth and enjoyment of reading. New to This Edition*Reflects the latest research and instructional practices.*New section (five chapters) on pressing current issues in the field: assessment, authentic reading experiences, English language learners, uses of multimedia tools, and the vocabularies of narrative and informational texts.*Contributor panel expanded with additional leading researchers.

The eleven chapters of Vocabulary in a Second Language are written by the world's leading researchers in the field of vocabulary studies in second language acquisition. Each chapter presents experimental research leading to new conclusions about and insights into the selection, the learning and teaching, or the testing of vocabulary knowledge in foreign languages. This book is intended as an up-to-date overview of the important domain of the lexicon for researchers in the field of second language acquisition, teacher trainers and professional teachers of second or foreign languages.

The Routledge Handbook of Vocabulary Studies provides a cutting-edge survey of current scholarship in this area. Divided into four sections, which cover understanding vocabulary; approaches to teaching and learning vocabulary; measuring knowledge of vocabulary; and key issues in teaching, researching, and measuring vocabulary, this Handbook: • brings together a wide range of approaches to learning words to provide clarity on how best vocabulary might be taught and learned; • provides a comprehensive discussion of the key issues and challenges in vocabulary studies, with research taken from the past 40 years; • includes chapters on both formulaic language as well as single-word items; • features original contributions from a range of internationally renowned scholars as well as academics at the forefront of innovative research. The Routledge Handbook of Vocabulary Studies is an essential text for those interested in teaching, learning, and researching vocabulary.

Concisely and in nontechnical language, this book reviews the current literature on vocabulary development among children and makes teachers and parents aware of current research in this all-important area for current and later success in school.

This book is intended for researchers and students in the field of second language (L2) acquisition. As its title suggests, the book discusses L2 vocabulary acquisition, knowledge and use, and examines them from the perspectives of assessment and corpus analysis. The chapters also address some additional central research issues: the role of word frequency in the input, the difference between single words and multiword units, and the distinction between vocabulary of oral and written language. The first three chapters of the book present critical reviews of different aspects of vocabulary acquisition. The other four chapters contain empirical studies that relate to the central themes of the book. The data in the studies draw on a variety of source and target languages: English, French, Italian, Swedish, Hebrew and Japanese. The book offers some new insights into the field of vocabulary and suggests avenues of research.