DEVELOPMENT AND RESEARCH IN APPLIED LINGUISTICS
Second-language acquisition
Development
The example selected to illustrate development in second-language acquisition studies is that of the Lexical Frequency Profile, a measure of vocabulary in the writing of second-language learners. As Laufer and Nation (1995) point out: ‘there has been interest in such measures for two reasons – they can be used to help distinguish some of the factors that affect the quality of a piece of writing, and they can be used to examine the relationship between vocabulary knowledge and vocabulary use’.
The development of a computerized instrument can be seen as a response to the common need to evaluate the role of vocabulary in language learning. It is likely that the Laufer and Nation study builds upon the revival of interest in vocabulary among second-language teachers. This revival – interestingly – represents a return to a more traditional applied linguistics view of the importance of vocabulary as against the centrality of grammar. At the same time, what vocabulary control indicates is a concomitant awareness of genre, of those words that group together in a discrete domain.
The Lexical Frequency Profile uses a frequency list against which to match the vocabulary of the submitted written work. Profiles based on running texts of 200+ words have been shown to provide stable results. The measure is, it is claimed, valid and reliable. Furthermore, the computer program allows for different frequency lists to be used and it is therefore possible to produce a different profile for different proficiency levels; the authors propose two different measures, one for less and one for more proficient students.
The Lexical Frequency Profile appears to be a robust response to the need for quick, reliable and valid estimations of writing proficiency and at the same time a useful indicator of the role of vocabulary in language learning.
