Vocabulary: Description, Acquisition and Pedagogy

Cambridge Language Teaching Library

by Norbert Schmitt (Editor), Michael McCarthy (Editor)

This volume examines the area of second language vocabulary studies from three broad perspectives: description, acquisition and pedagogical context. The book's fifteen chapters are grouped together to achieve a balance between descriptions of what vocabulary is and how it behaves, how the mind learns new vocabulary and then uses it when it is learned, and pedagogical issues of teaching and testing L2 vocabulary. Some of the specific topics addressed in these three general areas include: - word frequency and vocabulary size, multi-word units, variation between spoken and written language; - models of lexical acquisition, first language influences on second language vocabulary acquisition, vocabulary learning strategies; - vocabulary and the syllabus, trends in teaching and testing vocabulary, lexical reference sources.

400 pages, Paperback

First published January 15, 1998

Reviews

[Magdalena Golden · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was one of the core textbooks for the Lexis module of my MA in Applied Linguistics and I found it very interesting. It would be great if an updated edition could be published, though. A need best exemplified by the following quote ;)

"...though the arrival of computerised dictionaries on CD-ROM does open up a possibility of very large dictionaries being widely and compactly available"