Vocabulary Acquisition

Question	Answer
Cognate	words that have a common etymological origin (e.g. English: night - Danish: nat)
Multi-Word Unit	collective term for collocations, idioms, proverbs, etc.
Lemma	the canonical form, dictionary form, or citation form of a set of words (headword). In English, for example, run, runs, ran and running are forms of the same lexeme, with run as the lemma. Lexeme, in this context, refers to the set of all the forms that have the same meaning, and lemma refers to the particular form that is chosen by convention to represent the lexeme. In lexicography, this unit is usually also the citation form or headword by which it is indexed.
Lexeme	a unit of lexical meaning that exists regardless of the number of inflectional endings it may have or the number of words it may contain. It is a basic unit of meaning, and the headwords of a dictionary are all lexemes. Put more technically, a lexeme is an abstract unit of morphological analysis in linguistics, that roughly corresponds to a set of forms taken by a single word. For example, in the English language, run, runs, ran and running are forms of the same lexeme, conventionally written as run. A related concept is the lemma (or citation form), which is a particular form of a lexeme that is chosen by convention to represent a canonical form of a lexeme. Lemmas are used in dictionaries as the headwords, and other forms of a lexeme are often listed later in the entry if they are not common conjugations of that word.
Lexis	the total word-stock or lexicon having items of lexical, rather than grammatical, meaning.
Vocabulary Learning Strategies/Lexical Processing Strategies	Teaching learners different ways of incorporating word knowledge
Equivalence hypothesis (infercing between L2-L1)	even though words look different, you should assume that they work in the same way as in L1 - semantically and grammatically
incidental learning	acquiring vocab while focusing on meaning (as opposed to form). Often through communication or recreational consumption of L2 media. Words are picked up slower than intramural, explicit learning, but the high amount and high motivation makes it crucial to learning vocabulary, especially when it comes to low frequency words.
explicit learning	acquiring vocab while focusing on form (as opposed to meaning). Often through formal education, such as a classroom environment. Words are picked up faster than extramural, incidental learning, due to focus on form as well as teacher feedback. But learners have limited access to it and usually it is not as pleasurable as incidental learning. Intense focus on form may also be boring to some learners.
retention	remembering words (in long term memory) and being able to use them receptively and/or productively. This is usually done by "hooking" the word onto something already present in the mental lexicon (such an L1 word or a concept)
inference	making qualified guesses on the meaning of unknown words (e.g. on the basis of context, morph., etc.). A vocabulary learning strategy that learners may use
(deep/shallow) processing	how many "resources" your brain uses to acquire the meaning of a new word (studies show: the deeper, the longer the new word is retained)
Vocabulary Knowledge Scale	A scale developed by Paribakht and Wesche to determine depth of word knowledge (from 1 (I haven't seen the word before) to 5 (I can use the word in a sentence. Here is the sentence: ____________))
procedural knowledge	(knowledge of how to use words?) the knowledge exercised in the performance of some task. Procedural knowledge, or implicit knowledge is different from other kinds of knowledge, such as declarative knowledge, in that it can be directly applied to a task. For instance, the procedural knowledge one uses to solve problems differs from the declarative knowledge one possesses about problem solving because this knowledge is formed by doing
declarative knowledge	(knowledge of what words mean?) the type of knowledge that is, by its very nature, expressed in declarative sentences or indicative propositions. This distinguishes descriptive knowledge from what is commonly known as "know-how", or procedural knowledge (the knowledge of how, and especially how best, to perform some task), and "knowing of", or knowledge by acquaintance (the knowledge of something's existence).
Key Word Method	Learners temporarily associate a phrase or a mental image with word or phrase that is to be acquired, until it is retained in the mental lexicon. A vocabulary learning strategy. Deep processing.
mental lexicon	a term to describe how, in the mind, concepts are labelled (with words) and organized in relation to each other
collocation	a sequence of words or terms that co-occur more often than would be expected by chance (found through the use of corpora) (people who say something which technically grammatically correct and understandable, but just does not sound right: *"powerful tea" instead of "strong tea")
zone of proximal development (not covered in the curriculum)	the learner's current level of knowledge and the "levels" before and especially after it. I.E. level of knowledge just beyond the learner's knowledge, but close enough to provide and new information and yet be managable for the learner to comprehend (e.g. teaching the learner the past tense of verbs after she feels comfortable in her knowledge of the present tense). Stephen Krashen calls this "i+1" (comprehensible input+1) in his input hypothesis.
instructional scaffolding (not covered in the curriculum)	a learning process designed to promote at deeper level of learning. Scaffolding is the support given during the learning process which is tailored to the needs of the students with the intention of helping the student achieve his/her learning goals. Key elements include: 1. A collaboration between expert and learner. 2. Learning should take place within learner's zone of proximal development (cf. flash card). 3. Scaffolding (the support and guidance of the expert) is gradually removed as the learner becomes more proficient and has internalized the support.
expanding rehearsal	the principle that learners should review new material soon after the initial meeting and then at gradually increasing intervals. In this way forgetting is minimized
network building	creating connections between multiple words usually within the same semantic field. (e.g. "beach ball" and "sunshine" belong to semantic field "beach")
sense relations	categories of meaning relationships (e.g. what normal people refer to as "oppositeness" or "similar meaning"). Technical terms include: synonymy (rich-wealthy), ungraded antonymy (dead-alive), graded antonymy (hot-cold), hyponymy (vehicle-car) and meronymy (bicycle-handle, wheels, seat).
core meaning	the common meaning of a word shared by all members of a society. (see also 'encyclopedic knowledge')
encyclopedic knowledge	the (personal) connotations related to a word affected by one's experiences and personal beliefs. (see also 'core meaning')
register	describes the stylistic variations that make each word more or less appropriate for certain language situations or language purposes
word associations	when subjects are given a stimulus word and respond with another. A word association response can either be syntagmatic (a word that usually appear in conjunction with the stimulus word, e.g. abandon-ship) or paradigmatic (a word that is synonymous with the stimulus, e.g. abandon-leave).

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Vocabulary Acquisition

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	Created by therobinatron almost 9 years ago