Section 11

Lexical Aspects of L2 Acquisition

11.1. INTRODUCTION
The current section explores the ways in which L2 learners acquire the lexical
units of a L2. It also gives an overview of the high quality research findings that provide
an insight into lexical competence, the link between L1 and L2 vocabulary, and the
role of memory in lexical acquisition.

11.2. LEXICAL COMPETENCE

Lexical competence is the ability to recognize and use words in a language in
the way that speakers of the language use them. Lexical competence includes
understanding the different relationships among families of words and the common
collocations of words.
According to the definition given in the Common European Framework of
Reference for Languages (CEFR, 2001) lexical competence is the “knowledge of,
and ability to use, the vocabulary of a language, which consists of lexical elements and
grammatical elements” (CEFR, 2001:110).
The lexical elements include:
a) Fixed expressions, consisting of several words, which are used and
learnt as wholes. Fixed expressions include:
 sentential formulae, including:
o direct exponents of language functions such as greetings, e.g.
How do you do? Good morning! etc.
o proverbs, etc.
o relict archaisms, e.g. Be off with you!
 phrasal idioms, often:
o semantically opaque, frozen metaphors, e.g.:
He kicked the bucket (i.e. he died).
It’s a long shot (= unlikely to succeed).
He is a big shot. (= an important, influential person).
o intensifiers. Their use is often contextually and stylistically
restricted, e.g. as white as snow (= ‘pure’), as against as white as
a sheet (= ‘pallid’).
 fixed frames, learnt and used as unanalysed wholes, into which words
or phrases are inserted to form meaningful sentences, e.g.: ‘Please
may I have . . .’.
 other fixed phrases, such as:
o phrasal verbs, e.g. to put up with, to make do (with);
o compound prepositions, e.g. in front of.
 fixed collocations, consisting of words regularly used together, e.g.
to make a speech / mistake.

1
 b) Single word forms. A particular single word form may have several
distinct meanings (polysemy), e.g. tank, a liquid container or an
armoured armed vehicle. Single word forms include members of the
open word classes: noun, verb, adjective, adverb, though these may
include closed lexical sets (e.g. days of the week, months of the year,
weights and measures, etc.). Other lexical sets may also be established
for grammatical and semantic purposes (see below).
The grammatical elements which L2 learners need to acquire belong to the
following closed word classes, e.g. (in English):
 articles (a, the)
 quantifiers (some, all, many, etc.)
 demonstratives (this, that, these, those)
 personal pronouns (I, we, he, she, it, they, me, you, etc.)
 question words and relatives (who, what, which, where, how, etc.)
 possessives (my, your, his, her, its, etc.)
 prepositions (in, at, by, with, of, etc.)
 auxiliary verbs (be, do, have, modals)
 conjunctions (and, but, if, although)
 particles (e.g. in German: ja, wohl, aber, doch, etc.)
[CEFR, 2001:110 – 111]
Or said in other words: learners of English as a second language need to be
able to recognize the concept of chair and what makes it different from a stool, a sofa,
or a bench. They also need to know that a table is a piece of furniture, and that there
are various kinds of table, including bedside table, drawing table, coffee table,
refectory table, operating table and so on. They also need to understand that the word
table has another meaning which is not directly linked to the concept of furniture, for
instance: a way of showing detailed pieces of information, especially facts or numbers,
by arranging them in rows and lines across or down a page – e.g. Table 6 shows the
number of solved cases by the police during the last three years.

11.3. ASPECTS OF LEXIS

There are several aspects of lexis that need to be taken into account when
teaching vocabulary. The list below is based on the work of Gairns and Redman
(1986):
 Boundaries between conceptual meaning: knowing not only what the lexical
item refers to, but also where the boundaries are that separate it from words
of related meaning (e.g. cup, mug, bowl).
 Polysemy: distinguishing between the various meanings of a single word
form with several but closely related meanings (head: of a person, of a pin,
of an organisation).
 Homonymy: distinguishing between the various meanings of a single word
which are NOT closely related (e.g. a file: used to put papers in or a tool).

2
  Homophony: understanding words that have the same pronunciation but
different spellings and meanings (e.g. flour – flower; bear – bare).
 Synonymy: distinguishing between the different shades of meaning that
synonymous words have (e.g. extend, increase, expand).
 Affective meaning: distinguishing between the attitudinal and emotional
factors (denotation and connotation), which depend on the attitude of the
speakers or the situation. The socio-cultural associations of lexical items are
another important factor.
 Style, register, dialect: Being able to distinguish between different levels of
formality, the effect of different contexts and topics, as well as differences in
geographical variation.
 Translation: awareness of certain differences and similarities between the
native and the foreign language (e.g. false cognates).
 Chunks of language: multi-word verbs, idioms, strong and weak collocations,
lexical phrases.
 Grammar of vocabulary: learning the rules that enable students to build up
different forms of the word or even different words from that word (e.g. sleep,
slept, sleeping; able, unable; disability).
 Pronunciation: ability to recognise and reproduce items in speech.
The implication of the aspects just mentioned in teaching is that the goals of
vocabulary teaching must be more than simply covering a certain number of words on
a word list. We must use teaching techniques that can help realise this global concept
of what it means to know a lexical item. And we must also go beyond that, giving
learners opportunities to use the items learnt and also helping them to use effective
written storage systems.
But when we discuss vocabulary teaching and learning we need to clearly
provide an answer to the question “What to teach while teaching vocabulary?”. The
answer can be summarized in the following figure:

pronunciation
spelling
inflections
derivations
Form

Meaning Usage
basic and literal meanings subcategorization

3
 derived and figurative meanings collocation
semantic relation sociolinguistic and stylistic
connotation restrictions
slangs and idioms

Fig. 11.1 Aspects of teaching vocabulary

11.4. VOCABULARY ACQUISITION IN L1

The ability to learn new words in one’s native language is central to becoming a
skilled language user. The typical pattern of vocabulary development is now well-
established. Children usually produce their first words around their first birthday. “The
first 10 words or so are acquired relatively slowly, at the rate of between 1 to 3 words
per month. Rate of acquisition of new words then accelerates rapidly, leading to a
period of ‘vocabulary explosion’” [Gathercole and Baddeley, 1993 :41]. Between about
19 months and 2 years, children typically learn about 25 words per month. This rate of
acquisition does not stop and at the age of 5 children usually know about 2000 words.
Vocabulary development does not stop at adolescence. Adult learners also learn new
words but the rate of natural vocabulary acquisition during adulthood is much slower
and is likely to be dependent on social and economic factors.
The central role played by vocabulary knowledge in language processing, and
in intellectual development more generally, makes the study of vocabulary acquisition
processes subject of attention in psychology. Psychological research on vocabulary
acquisition is represented by two strands: 1) the tradition of developmental psychology
which has devised methods for stimulating very young children in acquiring new names
and concepts; 2) the tradition of educational research on how best to facilitate
vocabulary acquisition in school children.
However, we need to focus attention on how vocabulary is learned when
acquiring a second language.

11.5. VOCABULARY ACQUISITION IN L2

Learning a foreign language involves the learning of a number of language
subsystems including the language’s grammar, phonology and vocabulary. Vocabulary
has a crucial importance to the language learner, and this is proved by many studies
that show that vocabulary knowledge is a good predictor of success in reading in the
foreign language – a finding that echoes the strong relation that has long been known
to exist between native vocabulary knowledge and vocabulary skills (including fast,
automatic access of word knowledge in memory).

11.5.1. The lexicon in L1 and L2 acquisition

Lexical acquisition of children has been extensively investigated in child L1
research. In contrast, the investigation of child L2 acquisition has been versy sparse
(Rescorla and Okuda, 1984; Yoshida, 1978). When a young L2 learner starts learning

4
a second language at school, he / she already has a relatively full conceptual system
of his / her native language, as well as more developed motor skills. The greater
cognitive maturity of L2 learners has a positive impact on the target language
vocabulary acquisition.
As the conceptual development of children changes with their age, young
learners’ vocabulary knowledge expands. When children are at the age of 4 or 5, they
learn not only concrete words (i.e. words denoting things or objects in the world).
Research data has proved that children develop first their conceptual knowledge of
words when they communicate with adults and peers in their daily life. With the time
they learn to organize their vocabulary knowledge into sets – e.g. a dog and cat are
animals; chair and table are pieces of furniture etc. When children start to go to school,
their vocabulary knowledge increases and they are able to perform more complex
operations with it – e.g. classify vocabulary into sets, label different vocabulary
categories, compare and contrast vocabulary categories. Pupils also move from
concrete to abstract thinking and learn to use language to describe both abstract ideas
(e.g. describe time relations; talk about something that is not present in the classroom)
and subject specific ideas (e.g. children can talk about the topics covered in their
geography lessons). All those skills, though related to L1 learning, are perfectly
applicable to the foreign language classroom. That is why course books for young
learners who learn English as a foreign language start with words which belong to the
category of “basic level concepts” (Table 11.5.1.1), as it is considered that children
have mastered those concepts in their L1.
Table 11.5.1.1. Types of word categories
Superordinate CLOTHING STRINGED FOOTWEAR
concepts INSTRUMENTS
Basic level GLOVES GUITAR SHOES
concepts
Subordinate BOXING ELECTRIC TRAINERS
concepts GLOVES GUITAR

The words in the basic level are the words with the highest frequence of
occurrence (most often used words), they are used in neutral contexts and children
learn them before other words.
Apart from that it should be noted that a young L2 learner already has developed
some semantic system of his / her L1 which partially overlaps with the sematic system
of L2. “Therefore, acquisition of the L2 lexicon does not take place independently of
the L1 lexicon” [Jordens and Lalleman, 1996: 385]. However, there is not always a one
to one correspondence between the semantic meaning of L1 and L2 words, which
complicates the task of L2 learners. Consider the following differences between
English and Bulgarian:
a) in Bulgarian there are two words used to label the kinship relations тъща
(the mother of the bride / wife) and свекърва (the mother of the groom /
husband), while in English there is only one word – mother-in-law;

5
 b) in Bulgarian there are two words that are used to denote “the act of
shining or emitting light” – блестя and светя, while in English their
number is mkuch greater. Some of the English words with the same
denotative meaning are summarized in Table 11.5.1.2.
Table 11.5.1.2. English words denoting “the act of shining or emitting
light”

English word Meaning Example

shine to produce bright light The sun is shining bright.
shimmer to reflect a gentle light that seems The lake shimmered in the
to shake slightly moonlight.
glimmer to shine with a soft weak light that Candles glimmered in the
is not steady windows of the sun.
glitter to shine with a lot of small quick The river glittered in the sunlight.
flashes of light
glint to shine with quick flashes of light The gold rims of his spectacles
glinted in the sun.
glow to shine with a soft light The fireplace was still glowing
with the remains of last night’s
fire.
sparkle to shine with small points of The crystal chandelier sparkled.
reflected llight
flash to shine brightly for a very short Red warning lights flashed on
time and off.
flare to suddenly burn or shine brightly The fire flared up again.
(e.g. for candle, beacon)

One essential factor that plays a significant role in the acquisition of L1 lexicon
is the so called intentional learning. This type of learning can be observed in a L1
environment when parents or older children teach the L1 acquiring child (explicitly or
implicitly) new words – e.g. when looking at a picture book. Acquisition of L2 words
usually takes place in a structured classroom environment where the teacher presents
the new words in the context of a lesson.
Studies of L2 acquisition by young learners (Cameron, 2005; Erdmenger, 1955
etc) reveal that children who learn L2 vocabulary rely on their L1 categorizations and
lexical connections. As Erdmenger (1985) claims, “children tend to build the same
associations among L2 words as they had built among their L1 words” [del Pilar
Augustin LLach and Del Pilar, 2011:16]. Consequently, introducing a foreign language

6
in the first years of primary school education should be based on a systematic
sequencing of the developed L1 lexicon (Cameron, 2004).
Another observation made on the L2 acquisition of vocabulary is the production
of language chunks. According to research findings of Robinson and Ellis (2008) L2
young learners produce chunks of whole expressions before they can analyze them in
their constituent parts. Therefore, L2 learners produce statements of the type:
 “My happy birthday is in February;
 My what’s your name is Anna”.
[del Pilar Augustin LLach and Del Pilar, 2011: 17]
Unlike young L2 learners, teenage L2 learners of English, have already acquired
their mother tongue to a sufficient level which allows them to step on that and develop
solid knowledge of the target language. A prerequisite for that is the fact that they have
also acquired some intial lexical and grammatical knowledge of Englisg during their
primary school years. As teenagers have more complex way of thinking (including
hypothetical thinking), they start to enrich their English language vocabulary with words
that belong to the subordinate class concepts. For instance in grade 6 they learn
vocabulary related to the stages in human life, character adjectives, language related
to age, appearance, character and clothes, personal qualities, vocabulary related to
educational systems, reference words, compounds, collocations and ways of forming
difference collocations (e.g. loose / lose / miss something etc.).
Some of the typical activities in an English language coursebook for learners
aged 10 – 14 include:
(1) Match the verbs with the nouns:
catch a hat
put on the bus
get ready a letter
throw dinner
send my teeth
have for bed
brush a break
take a ball

(2) Complete the sentences with words from the list: loose / lose / miss.
1. ______ a flight; 2. _______ an argument; 3. to have a _______; 4. to _______ a
tooth; 5. ______ home; 6. pull sth _______; 7. _______ a race; 8. _______ a penalty;
9. _____ clothes; 10. ______ your keys.

11.6. CONCLUSION
Vocabulary learning should be seen as a continuous process which should
include not only presentation but also regular recycling and consolidation. The L2
lessons have to include a variety of activities that provide opportunities for learners to
practise and use the new words in controlled and more open-ended activities so that
students manage to move from the receptive and initial knowledge of a word to a more

7
proficient stage in which they are able to recognize it in the speech flow, pronounce it,
produce it in writing and use it appropriately.

QUESTIONS
1. Is there any difference in the way in which children acquire their L1 vocabulary and
theL2 vocabulary? What is it?
2. What is the difference between L1 and L2 vocabulary acquisition?
3. Think back of the primary school lessons you have observed. Choose a primary
school coursebook and point out the categories of words that Bulgarian learners of
English in grades 2, 3 and 4 learn. How is their vocabulary enriched in each grade?
4. Look at the lexical mistakes made by Bulgarian teenage learners of English.
 She is very talent opera singer .
 I always wash my hands before you eat (meaning: “I always wash my hands
before I eat”);
 Jordan Jovkov is a major literary worker.
 What is her most excited experience?
 Martin hasn’t flied a plane.
 I never went on movies.