"Vocab" redirects here. For the song by Fugees, see
Vocab (song).
A person's
vocabulary is the set of
words within a
language that are familiar to that person. A vocabulary usually develops with age, and serves as a useful and fundamental tool for
communication and
acquiring knowledge. Acquiring an extensive vocabulary is one of the largest challenges in learning a
second language.
Definition and usage
Vocabulary is commonly defined as "all the words known and used by a particular person".
[1] Knowing
a word, however, is not as simple as simply being able to recognize or
use it. There are several aspects of word knowledge which are used to
measure word knowledge.
Productive and receptive
The first major distinction that must be made when evaluating word
knowledge is whether the knowledge is productive (also called achieve)
or receptive (also called receive) and even within those opposing
categories, there is often no clear distinction. Words that are
generally understood when heard or read or seen constitute a person's
receptive vocabulary. These words may range from well known to barely
known (see
degree of knowledge
below). A person's receptive vocabulary is the larger of the two. For
example, although a young child may not yet be able to speak, write, or
sign, he or she may be able to follow simple commands and appear to
understand a good portion of the language to which he or she is exposed.
In this case, the child's receptive vocabulary is likely tens, if not
hundreds of words but his or her active vocabulary is zero. When that
child learns to speak or sign, however, the child's active vocabulary
begins to increase. It is possible for the productive vocabulary to be
larger than the receptive vocabulary, for example in a second-language
learner who has learned words through study rather than exposure, and
can produce them, but has difficulty recognizing them in conversation.
Productive vocabulary, therefore, generally refers to words which can
be produced within an appropriate context and match the intended
meaning of the speaker or signer. As with receptive vocabulary, however,
there are many degrees at which a particular word may be considered
part of an active vocabulary. Knowing how to pronounce, sign, or write a
word does not necessarily mean that the word has been used to correctly
or accurately reflect the intended message of the utterance, but it
does reflect a minimal amount of productive knowledge.
Degree of knowledge
Within the receptive–productive distinction lies a range of abilities which are often referred to as
degree of knowledge.
This simply indicates that a word gradually enters a person's
vocabulary over a period of time as more aspects of word knowledge are
learnt. Roughly, these stages could be described as:
- Never encountered the word.
- Heard the word, but cannot define it.
- Recognize the word due to context or tone of voice.
- Able to use the word and understand the general and/or intended meaning, but cannot clearly explain it.
- Fluent with the word – its use and definition.
Depth of knowledge
The differing degrees of word knowledge imply a greater
depth of knowledge,
but the process is more complex than that. There are many facets to
knowing a word, some of which are not hierarchical so their acquisition
does not necessarily follow a linear progression suggested by
degree of knowledge.
Several frameworks of word knowledge have been proposed to better
operationalise this concept. One such framework includes nine facets:
- orthography - written form
- phonology - spoken form
- reference - meaning
- semantics - concept and reference
- register - appropriacy of use
- collocation - lexical neighbours
- word associations
- syntax - grammatical function
- morphology - word parts
Types of vocabulary
Listed in order of most ample to most limited:[2][3]
Reading vocabulary
A literate person's
reading
vocabulary is all the words he or she can recognize when reading. This
is generally the largest type of vocabulary simply because a reader
tends to be exposed to more words by reading than by listening. In many
cases, notably
Chinese characters, as in
Chinese and
Japanese kanji,
where the pronunciation is not indicated by the written word, some
words may be part of the written vocabulary but not the commonly spoken
language. For example, a Chinese speaker may not recognize that 麒麟
(giraffe) is pronounced
qi lin, a Japanese speaker may not recognize that 麒麟 (giraffe) is pronounced
kirin.
Listening vocabulary
A person's
listening
vocabulary is all the words he or she can recognize when listening to
speech. People may still understand words they were not exposed to
before using cues such as tone, gestures, the topic of discussion and
the social context of the conversation.
Speaking vocabulary
A person's speaking vocabulary is all the words he or she uses in
speech.
It is likely to be a subset of the listening vocabulary. Due to the
spontaneous nature of speech, words are often misused. This misuse –
though slight and unintentional – may be compensated by facial
expressions, tone of voice, or hand
gestures.
Writing vocabulary
Words are used in various forms of writing from formal essays to
Twitter feeds. Many written words do not commonly appear in speech.
Writers generally use a limited set of words when communicating: for
example
- if there are a number of synonyms, a writer will have his own preference as to which of them to use.
- he is unlikely to use technical vocabulary relating to a subject in which he has no knowledge or interest.
Focal vocabulary
Focal vocabulary is a specialized set of terms and distinctions that
is particularly important to a certain group: those with a particular
focus of experience or activity. A lexicon, or vocabulary, is a
language's dictionary: its set of names for things, events, and ideas.
Some linguists believe that lexicon influences people's perception of
things, the
Sapir–Whorf hypothesis. For example, the
Nuer
of Sudan have an elaborate vocabulary to describe cattle. The Nuer have
dozens of names for cattle because of the cattle's particular
histories, economies, and environments
[clarification needed]. This kind of comparison has elicited some linguistic controversy, as with the number of "
Eskimo words for snow".
English speakers with relevant specialised knowledge can also display
elaborate and precise vocabularies for snow and cattle when the need
arises.
[4][5]
Vocabulary growth
During its infancy, a child instinctively builds a vocabulary.
Infants imitate words that they hear and then associate those words with objects and actions. This is the
listening vocabulary. The
speaking vocabulary
follows, as a child's thoughts become more reliant on his/her ability
to self-express without relying on gestures or babbling. Once the
reading and
writing vocabularies start to develop, through questions and
education, the child starts to discover the anomalies and irregularities of language.
In
first grade,
a child who can read learns about twice as many words as one who
cannot. Generally, this gap does not narrow later. This results in a
wide range of vocabulary by age five or six, when an English-speaking
child will have learned about 1500 words.
[6]
After leaving school, vocabulary growth reaches a plateau
[clarification needed]. People usually then expand their vocabularies by e.g. reading, playing
word games,
and by participating in vocabulary-related programs. Exposure to
traditional print media teaches correct spelling and vocabulary, while
exposure to text messaging leads to more relaxed word acceptability
constraints.
[7]
