Modelling and Assessing Vocabulary Knowledge

by Edited by Helmut Daller , James Milton , Jeanine Treffers-Daller

• ISBN13: 9780521703277
• ISBN10: 0521703271
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-09-03
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Over the last 20 years vocabulary research has grown from a Cinderella subject to a position of some importance. Vocabulary is now considered integral to just about every aspect of language knowledge and is a lively and vital area of research and innovation. With this development have come standard and widely-used tests, such as vocabulary size and lexical richness measures, and commonly accepted metaphors, such as the mental lexicon as a web of words. Less widely known outside academic circles, however, is the extensive work on learners' lexis and the utility, reliability and validity of the tests we use to measure and investigate it. This volume brings together contributions from internationally-renowned researchers in this field to explain much of the background to study in this area. It introduces to a wider audience the concerns, the newest approaches and developments in the field of vocabulary research and testing.

Table of Contents

List of contributors	p. vii
List of abbreviations	p. viii
Acknowledgements	p. ix
Foreword	p. xi
Series Editors' Preface	p. xii
Editors' introduction: Conventions, terminology and an overview of the book	p. 1
Fundamental issues	p. 33
Fundamental issues in modelling and assessing vocabulary knowledge	p. 35
Vocabulary and learner differences	p. 45
Lexical profiles, learning styles and the construct validity of lexical size tests	p. 47
Learners' response behaviour in Yes/No Vocabulary Tests	p. 59
The unit of assessment and multiple vocabulary measures	p. 77
Validity and threats to the validity of vocabulary measurement	p. 79
Comparing measures of lexical richness	p. 93
Productive vocabulary tests and the search for concurrent validity	p. 116
Exploring measures of vocabulary richness in semi-spontaneous French speech	p. 133
Lexical richness and the oral proficiency of Chinese EFL students	p. 150
Metaphors and measures in vocabulary knowledge	p. 165
Implementing graph theory approaches to the exploration of density and structure in L1 and L2 word association networks	p. 167
Insights into the structure of L1 and L2 vocabulary networks: intimations of small worlds	p. 182
Vocabulary measures in use	p. 205
Assessing vocabulary for the purpose of reading diagnosis	p. 207
The best of both worlds? Combined methodological approaches to the assessment of vocabulary in oral proficiency interviews	p. 220
What is in a teacher's mind? Teacher ratings of EFL essays and different aspects of lexical richness	p. 234
References	p. 245
Appendices	p. 263
Index	p. 269
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.