Vocabulary word and its meaning

«Vocab» redirects here. For the song by Fugees, see Vocab (song).

A vocabulary is a set of familiar words within a person’s language. A vocabulary, usually developed with age, serves as a useful and fundamental tool for communication and acquiring knowledge. Acquiring an extensive vocabulary is one of the largest challenges in learning a second language.

Definition and usage[edit]

Vocabulary is commonly defined as «all the words known and used by a particular person».^[1]

Productive and receptive knowledge[edit]

The first major change distinction that must be made when evaluating word knowledge is whether the knowledge is productive (also called achieve or active) or receptive (also called receive or passive); even within those opposing categories, there is often no clear distinction. Words that are generally understood when heard or read or seen constitute a person’s receptive vocabulary. These words may range from well known to barely known (see degree of knowledge below). A person’s receptive vocabulary is usually the larger of the two. For example, although a young child may not yet be able to speak, write, or sign, they may be able to follow simple commands and appear to understand a good portion of the language to which they are exposed. In this case, the child’s receptive vocabulary is likely tens, if not hundreds of words, but their active vocabulary is zero. When that child learns to speak or sign, however, the child’s active vocabulary begins to increase. It is also possible for the productive vocabulary to be larger than the receptive vocabulary, for example in a second-language learner who has learned words through study rather than exposure, and can produce them, but has difficulty recognizing them in conversation.

Productive vocabulary, therefore, generally refers to words that can be produced within an appropriate context and match the intended meaning of the speaker or signer. As with receptive vocabulary, however, there are many degrees at which a particular word may be considered part of an active vocabulary. Knowing how to pronounce, sign, or write a word does not necessarily mean that the word that has been used correctly or accurately reflects the intended message; but it does reflect a minimal amount of productive knowledge.

Degree of knowledge[edit]

Within the receptive–productive distinction lies a range of abilities that are often referred to as degree of knowledge. This simply indicates that a word gradually enters a person’s vocabulary over a period of time as more aspects of word knowledge are learnt. Roughly, these stages could be described as:

1. Never encountered the word.
2. Heard the word, but cannot define it.
3. Recognizes the word due to context or tone of voice.
4. Able to use the word and understand the general and/or intended meaning, but cannot clearly explain it.
5. Fluent with the word – its use and definition.

Depth of knowledge[edit]

The differing degrees of word knowledge imply a greater depth of knowledge, but the process is more complex than that. There are many facets to knowing a word, some of which are not hierarchical so their acquisition does not necessarily follow a linear progression suggested by degree of knowledge. Several frameworks of word knowledge have been proposed to better operationalise this concept. One such framework includes nine facets:

1. orthography – written form
2. phonology – spoken form
3. reference – meaning
4. semantics – concept and reference
5. register – appropriacy of use or register
6. collocation – lexical neighbours
7. word associations
8. syntax – grammatical function
9. morphology – word parts

Definition of word[edit]

Words can be defined in various ways, and estimates of vocabulary size differ depending on the definition used. The most common definition is that of a lemma (the inflected or dictionary form; this includes walk, but not walks, walked or walking). Most of the time lemmas do not include proper nouns (names of people, places, companies, etc.). Another definition often used in research of vocabulary size is that of word family. These are all the words that can be derived from a ground word (e.g., the words effortless, effortlessly, effortful, effortfully are all part of the word family effort). Estimates of vocabulary size range from as high as 200 thousand to as low as 10 thousand, depending on the definition used.^[2]

Types of vocabulary[edit]

Listed in order of most ample to most limited:^[3][4]

Reading vocabulary[edit]

A person’s reading vocabulary is all the words recognized when reading. This class of vocabulary is generally the most ample, as new words are more commonly encountered when reading than when listening.

Listening vocabulary[edit]

A person’s listening vocabulary comprises the words recognized when listening to speech. Cues such as the speaker’s tone and gestures, the topic of discussion, and the conversation’s social context may convey the meaning of an unfamiliar word.

Speaking vocabulary[edit]

A person’s speaking vocabulary comprises the words used in speech and is generally a subset of the listening vocabulary. Due to the spontaneous nature of speech, words are often misused slightly and unintentionally, but facial expressions and tone of voice can compensate for this misuse.

Writing vocabulary[edit]

The written word appears in registers as different as formal essays and social media feeds. While many written words rarely appear in speech, a person’s written vocabulary is generally limited by preference and context: a writer may prefer one synonym over another, and they will be unlikely to use technical vocabulary relating to a subject in which they have no interest or knowledge.

Final vocabulary[edit]

The American philosopher Richard Rorty characterized a person’s «final vocabulary» as follows:

All human beings carry about a set of words which they employ to justify their actions, their beliefs, and their lives. These are the words in which we formulate praise of our friends and contempt for our enemies, our long-term projects, our deepest self-doubts and our highest hopes… I shall call these words a person’s «final vocabulary». Those words are as far as he can go with language; beyond them is only helpless passivity or a resort to force. (Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity p. 73)^[5]

Focal vocabulary[edit]

Focal vocabulary is a specialized set of terms and distinctions that is particularly important to a certain group: those with a particular focus of experience or activity. A lexicon, or vocabulary, is a language’s dictionary: its set of names for things, events, and ideas. Some linguists believe that lexicon influences people’s perception of things, the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis. For example, the Nuer of Sudan have an elaborate vocabulary to describe cattle. The Nuer have dozens of names for cattle because of the cattle’s particular histories, economies, and environments^{[clarification needed]}. This kind of comparison has elicited some linguistic controversy, as with the number of «Eskimo words for snow». English speakers with relevant specialised knowledge can also display elaborate and precise vocabularies for snow and cattle when the need arises.^[6][7]

Vocabulary growth[edit]

During its infancy, a child instinctively builds a vocabulary. Infants imitate words that they hear and then associate those words with objects and actions. This is the listening vocabulary. The speaking vocabulary follows, as a child’s thoughts become more reliant on their ability to self-express without relying on gestures or babbling. Once the reading and writing vocabularies start to develop, through questions and education, the child starts to discover the anomalies and irregularities of language.

In first grade, a child who can read learns about twice as many words as one who cannot. Generally, this gap does not narrow later. This results in a wide range of vocabulary by age five or six, when an English-speaking child will have learned about 1500 words.^[8]

Vocabulary grows throughout one’s life. Between the ages of 20 and 60, people learn about 6,000 more lemmas, or one every other day.^[9] An average 20-year-old knows 42,000 lemmas coming from 11,100 word families.^[9] People expand their vocabularies by e.g. reading, playing word games, and participating in vocabulary-related programs. Exposure to traditional print media teaches correct spelling and vocabulary, while exposure to text messaging leads to more relaxed word acceptability constraints.^[10]

Importance[edit]

• An extensive vocabulary aids expression and communication.
• Vocabulary size has been directly linked to reading comprehension.^[11]
• Linguistic vocabulary is synonymous with thinking vocabulary.^[11]
• A person may be judged by others based on their vocabulary.
• Wilkins (1972) said, «Without grammar, very little can be conveyed; without vocabulary, nothing can be conveyed.»^[12]

Vocabulary size[edit]

Native-language vocabulary[edit]

Estimating average vocabulary size poses various difficulties and limitations due to the different definitions and methods employed such as what is the word, what is to know a word, what sample dictionaries were used, how tests were conducted, and so on.^{[9][13][14][15]} Native speakers’ vocabularies also vary widely within a language, and are dependent on the level of the speaker’s education.

As a result, estimates vary from 10,000-17,000 word families^[13][16] or 17,000-42,000 dictionary words for young adult native speakers of English.^[9][14]

A 2016 study shows that 20-year-old English native speakers recognize on average 42,000 lemmas, ranging from 27,100 for the lowest 5% of the population to 51,700 lemmas for the highest 5%. These lemmas come from 6,100 word families in the lowest 5% of the population and 14,900 word families in the highest 5%. 60-year-olds know on average 6,000 lemmas more.
^[9]

According to another, earlier 1995 study junior-high students would be able to recognize the meanings of about 10,000–12,000 words, whereas for college students this number grows up to about 12,000–17,000 and for elderly adults up to about 17,000 or more.^[17]

For native speakers of German, average absolute vocabulary sizes range from 5,900 lemmas in first grade to 73,000 for adults.^[18]

Foreign-language vocabulary[edit]

The effects of vocabulary size on language comprehension[edit]

The knowledge of the 3000 most frequent English word families or the 5000 most frequent words provides 95% vocabulary coverage of spoken discourse.^[19]
For minimal reading comprehension a threshold of 3,000 word families (5,000 lexical items) was suggested^[20][21] and for reading for pleasure 5,000 word families (8,000 lexical items) are required.^[22] An «optimal» threshold of 8,000 word families yields the coverage of 98% (including proper nouns).^[21]

Second language vocabulary acquisition[edit]

Learning vocabulary is one of the first steps in learning a second language, but a learner never finishes vocabulary acquisition. Whether in one’s native language or a second language, the acquisition of new vocabulary is an ongoing process. There are many techniques that help one acquire new vocabulary.

Memorization[edit]

Although memorization can be seen as tedious or boring, associating one word in the native language with the corresponding word in the second language until memorized is considered one of the best methods of vocabulary acquisition. By the time students reach adulthood, they generally have gathered a number of personalized memorization methods. Although many argue that memorization does not typically require the complex cognitive processing that increases retention (Sagarra and Alba, 2006),^[23] it does typically require a large amount of repetition, and spaced repetition with flashcards is an established method for memorization, particularly used for vocabulary acquisition in computer-assisted language learning. Other methods typically require more time and longer to recall.

Some words cannot be easily linked through association or other methods. When a word in the second language is phonologically or visually similar to a word in the native language, one often assumes they also share similar meanings. Though this is frequently the case, it is not always true. When faced with a false friend, memorization and repetition are the keys to mastery. If a second language learner relies solely on word associations to learn new vocabulary, that person will have a very difficult time mastering false friends. When large amounts of vocabulary must be acquired in a limited amount of time, when the learner needs to recall information quickly, when words represent abstract concepts or are difficult to picture in a mental image, or when discriminating between false friends, rote memorization is the method to use. A neural network model of novel word learning across orthographies, accounting for L1-specific memorization abilities of L2-learners has recently been introduced (Hadzibeganovic and Cannas, 2009).^[24]

The keyword method[edit]

One way of learning vocabulary is to use mnemonic devices or to create associations between words, this is known as the «keyword method» (Sagarra and Alba, 2006).^[23] It also takes a long time to implement — and takes a long time to recollect — but because it makes a few new strange ideas connect it may help in learning.^[23] Also it presumably does not conflict with Paivio’s dual coding system^[25] because it uses visual and verbal mental faculties. However, this is still best used for words that represent concrete things, as abstract concepts are more difficult to remember.^[23]

Word lists[edit]

Several word lists have been developed to provide people with a limited vocabulary for rapid language proficiency or for effective communication. These include Basic English (850 words), Special English (1,500 words), General Service List (2,000 words), and Academic Word List. Some learner’s dictionaries have developed defining vocabularies which contain only most common and basic words. As a result, word definitions in such dictionaries can be understood even by learners with a limited vocabulary.^[26][27][28] Some publishers produce dictionaries based on word frequency^[29] or thematic groups.^[30][31][32]

The Swadesh list was made for investigation in linguistics.

See also[edit]

• Differences between American and British English (vocabulary)
• Language proficiency: The ability of an individual to speak or perform in an acquired language
• Lexicon
• Longest word in English: Many of the longest words in the English language
• Mental lexicon

Footnotes[edit]

References[edit]

• Barnhart, Clarence Lewis (ed.) (1968). The World Book Dictionary. Chicago: Thorndike-Barnhart, OCLC 437494
• Brysbaert M, Stevens M, Mandera P and Keuleers E (2016) How Many Words Do We Know? Practical Estimates of Vocabulary Size Dependent on Word Definition, the Degree of Language Input and the Participant’s Age. Front. Psychol. 7:1116. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01116.
• Flynn, James Robert (2008). Where have all the liberals gone? : race, class, and ideals in America. Cambridge University Press; 1st edition. ISBN 978-0-521-49431-1 OCLC 231580885
• Lenkeit, Roberta Edwards (2007) Introducing cultural anthropology Boston: McGraw-Hill (3rd. ed.) OCLC 64230435
• Liu, Na; Nation, I. S. P. (1985). «Factors affecting guessing vocabulary in context» (PDF). RELC Journal. 16: 33–42. doi:10.1177/003368828501600103. S2CID 145695274.
• Miller, Barbara D. (1999). Cultural Anthropology(4th ed.) Boston: Allyn and Bacon, p. 315 OCLC 39101950
• Schonell, Sir Fred Joyce, Ivor G. Meddleton and B. A. Shaw, A study of the oral vocabulary of adults : an investigation into the spoken vocabulary of the Australian worker, University of Queensland Press, Brisbane, 1956. OCLC 606593777
• West, Michael (1953). A general service list of English words, with semantic frequencies and a supplementary word-list for the writing of popular science and technology London, New York: Longman, Green OCLC 318957

External links[edit]

• Bibliography on vocabulary I.S.P. Nation’s extensive collection of research on vocabulary.
• Vocabulary Acquisition Research Group Archive An bibliographic database on vocabulary acquisition at Swansea University.

Last Updated:
29 Mar 2023
— Updated example sentences

Vocabulary (from the Latin for «name,» also called wordstock, lexicon, and lexis) refers to all the words in a language that are understood by a particular person or group of people. There are two main types of vocabulary: active and passive. An active vocabulary consists of the words we understand and use in everyday speaking and writing. Passive vocabulary is made up of words that we may recognize but don’t generally use in the course of normal communication.

Vocabulary Acquisition

«By age 2, spoken vocabulary usually exceeds 200 words. Three-year-olds have an active vocabulary of at least 2,000 words, and some have far more. By 5, the figure is well over 4,000. The suggestion is that they are learning, on average, three or four new words a day.»—From «How Language Works» by David Crystal

Measuring Vocabulary

Exactly how many words are there in the English language? There’s no real answer to that question. In order to reach a plausible total, there must be a consensus as to what constitutes actual vocabulary.

Editors of the 1989 edition of the Oxford English Dictionary reported that the reference work contained upwards of 500,000 definitions. The average dictionary clocks it at about 100,000 entries. When you add it all up along with lists of geographical, zoological, botanical, and other specialized jargon, an imperfect but credible total for the number of words and word-like forms in present-day English is in excess of a billion words.

Likewise, the sum of a person’s vocabulary is more than just the total number of words he or she knows. It also takes into account what people have experienced, reflected on, and either incorporated or rejected. As a result, the measure of vocabulary is fluid rather than fixed.

The English Language’s Appropriated Vocabulary

«English, probably more so than any language on earth, has a stunningly bastard vocabulary,» notes David Wolman, a frequent writer on language, Contributing editor at Outside, and longtime contributor at Wired. He estimates that between 80 and 90% of all the words in the Oxford English Dictionary are derived from other languages. «Old English, lest we forget,» he points out, «was already an amalgam of Germanic tongues, Celtic, and Latin, with pinches of Scandinavian and Old French influence as well.»

According to Ammon Shea, the author of several books on obscure words, «the vocabulary of English is currently 70 to 80% composed of words of Greek and Latin origin, but it is certainly not a Romance language, it is a Germanic one.» Proof for this, he explains can be found in the fact that while it’s relatively simple to construct a sentence without using words of Latin origin, «it’s pretty much impossible to make one that has no words from Old English.»

English Vocabulary by Region

• Canadian English Vocabulary: Canadian English vocabulary tends to be closer to American English than British. The languages of both American and British settlers remained intact for the most part when settlers came to Canada. Some language variations have resulted from contact with Canada’s Aboriginal languages and with French settlers. While there are relatively few Canadian words for things that have other names in other dialects, there is enough differentiation to qualify Canadian English as a unique, identifiable dialect of North American English at the lexical level.
• British English and American English: These days, there are many more American words and expressions in British English than ever before. Although there is a two-way exchange, the directional flow of borrowing favors the route from American to Britain. As a result, speakers of British English generally tend to be familiar with more Americanisms than speakers of American English are of Britishisms.
• Australian English: «Australian English is set apart from other dialects thanks to its abundance of highly colloquial words and expressions. Regional colloquialisms in Australia often take the form of shortening a word, and then adding a suffix such as -ie or -o. For example, a «truckie» is a truck driver; a «milko» is a milkman; «Oz» is short for Australia, and an «Aussie» is an Australian.

The Lighter Side of Vocabulary

«I was with a girl once. Wasn’t a squaw, but she was purty. She had yellow hair, like, uh… oh, like something.»

«Like hair bobbed from a ray of sunlight?»

«Yeah, yeah. Like that. Boy, you talk good.»

«You can hide things in vocabulary.»

—Garret Dillahunt as Ed Miller and Paul Schneider as Dick Liddil in «The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford»

Related Resources

• Common Word Roots
• Introduction to Etymology
• Lexical Competence
• Lexicalization
• Lexicogrammar
• The 3 Best Sites to Learn a New Word Every Day

Vocabulary-Building Exercises and Quizzes

• Vocabulary Quiz #1: Defining Words in Context
• Vocabulary Quiz on the «I Have a Dream» Speech by Martin Luther King, Jr.

Sources

• Crystal, David. «How Language Works: How Babies Babble, Words Change Meaning, and Languages Live or Die.» Harry N. Abrams, 2006
• Wolman, David. «Righting the Mother Tongue: From Olde English to Email, the Tangled Story of English Spelling,» Smithsonian. October 7, 2008
• McWhorter, John. «The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language.» Harper Perennial, 2001
• Samuels, S. Jay. «What Research Has to Say About Vocabulary Instruction.» International Reading Association, 2008
• McArthur, Tom. «The Oxford Companion to the English Language.» Oxford University Press, 1992
• Wolman, David. «Righting the Mother Tongue: From Olde English to Email, the Tangled Story of English Spelling.» Harper, 2010
• Shea, Ammon. «Bad English: A History of Linguistic Aggravation.» TarcherPerigee, 2014
• Boberg, Charles. «The English Language in Canada: Status, History and Comparative Analysis.» Cambridge University Press, 2010
• Kövecses, Zoltán. «American English: An Introduction.» Broadview Press, 2000
• Wells, John Christopher. «Accents of English: The British Isles.» Cambridge University Press, 1986
• McCarthy, Michel; O’Dell, Felicity. «English Vocabulary in Use: Upper-Intermediate,» Second Edition. Cambridge University Press, 2001

There
are broadly speaking two schools of thought in present-day
linguistics representing the main lines of contemporary thinking on
the problem: the referential approach which seeks to formulate the
essence of meaning by establishing the interdependence between words
and things or concepts they denote, and the functional approach,
which studies the functions of a word in speech and is less concerned
with what meaning is than with how it works.

All
major works on semantic theory have so far been based on referential
concepts of meaning. The essential feature of this approach is that
it distinguishes between the three components closely connected with
meaning: the sound form of the linguistic sign, the concept
underlying this sound form and the referent, i.e. that part or that
aspect of reality to which the linguistic sign refers. The best known
referential model of meaning is the so-called “basic triangle”.

CONCEPT

SOUND
FORM –––––––––– REFERENT

As
can be seen from the diagram the sound form of the linguistic sign,
e.g. [teibl]
, is connected with our concept of the piece of furniture which it
denotes and through it with the referent, i.e. the actual table. The
common feature of any referential approach is the implication that
meaning is in some form or other connected with the referent.

Meaning
and Sound Form

The
sound form of the word is not identical with its meaning, e.g. [d
v]
is the sound form used to denote a pearl-grey bird. There are no
inherent connections, however, between this particular sound cluster
and the meaning of the word dove. The connections are conventional
and arbitrary. This can be easily proved by comparing the sound forms
of different languages conveying the same meaning: стіл-
стол-
table – tisch.

It
can also be proved by comparing almost identical sound forms that
possess different meanings in different languages. E.g.: [
ni:s]
— a daughter of a brother or a sister (English); ніс
—
a
part of a face (Ukrainian).

For
more convincing evidence of the conventional and arbitrary nature of
the connection between sound form and meaning all we have to do is to
point to homonyms. The word case means something that has happened
and case also means a box, a container.

Besides,
if meaning were inherently connected with the sound form of a
linguistic unit, it would follow that a change in the sound form of
the word in the course of its historical development does not
necessarily affect its meaning.

Meaning
and Concept

When
we examine a word we see that its meaning though closely connected
with the underlying concept or concepts is not identical with them.

Concept
is the category of human cognition. Concept is the thought of the
object that singles out its essential features. Our concepts reflect
the most common and typical features of different objects. Being the
result of abstraction and generalisation all concepts are thus almost
the same for the whole of humanity in one and the same period of its
historical development. That is to say, words expressing identical
concepts in English and Ukrainian differ considerably.

e.g.:
The concept of the physical organism is expressed in English by the
word body, in Ukrainian by тіло,
but the semantic range of the English word is not identical with that
of Ukrainian. The word body is known to have developed a number of
secondary meanings and may denote: a number of persons and things, a
collective whole (the body of electors) as distinguished from the
limbs and the head; hence, the main part as of an army, a structure
of a book (the body of a book). As it is known, such concepts are
expressed in Ukrainian by other words.

The
difference between meaning and concept can also be observed by
comparing synonymous words and word-groups expressing the same
concepts but possessing a linguistic meaning which is felt as
different in each of the units under consideration.

e.g.:
—
to
fail the exam, to come down, to muff;

—
to be ploughed, plucked, pipped.

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