​ This volume contributes to the research in two different research areas: lexical availability studies and vocabulary research in second or foreign languages. Lexical availability is defined as the words that immediately come to mind as a response to a stimulus provided by topics related to domains closely connected to daily life: for instance animals, food and drink, daily activities, politics, or poverty. Lexical availability is a dimension of learners’ receptive and productive lexical competence, and, consequently, an important variable of learners’ communicative competence. Written by leading researchers in Spanish and English applied linguistics, the studies presented in this volume offer the reader findings and insights from studies conducted in learners with different mother tongues, who learn English or Spanish as their second or third language. “This book made me aware of an approach to vocabulary acquisition which has a long tradition in European research, but has been somewhat neglected by English-speaking researchers. The methodology was pioneered in France where it developed into the Francais Fondamental project - an influential approach to the vocabulary needs of learners of French. It was also taken up by Spanish researchers, and more recently developed by the team at La Rioja University. Where English-language research has focused on the frequency of words in large corpora and the implications of this feature for L2 vocabulary acquisition, the lexical availability tradition takes a much more learner-centred approach to L2 vocabulary skills, directly reflecting learners' needs and learners' ability to do things with small, effective vocabularies. This leads to a set of research priorities that look refreshingly different from the ones we are used to. Read this book. It might change the way you think about vocabulary research.” Paul Meara, Swansea University, Wales, UK

The empirical studies in this text address key issues in the development and use of vocabulary by child bilinguals and older second-language learners. The thematic focus in this collection of articles is on the assessment of lexical development in bilinguals at different points in the lifespan.

New quantitative methodology and the development of corpus and experimental linguistics tools have recently made researching lexical comprehension and production more accessible. While several tools and data sets are available in English (Coh-metrix, CELEX) and a few other languages, the development of resources and empirical research is still lacking in Spanish. This volume brings together original empirical research and theoretical perspectives that examine lexical development in Spanish L1, L2 and L3, with a focus on different teaching approaches and textbook coverage of Spanish lexicon in L2 curricula and the use of corpus linguistics in methodological investigations. Some questions addressed include the role of lexical development in mapping grammatical acquisition phases, the potential transfers of L1 to L2 lexical abilities, the effect of explicit vocabulary learning techniques in L2, how affective meaning modulates L2 acquisition, or how a typological understanding of lexical organization can help in teaching more effectively the lexicon of a language, among many others. The book offers an overview of what is currently being done in the field of Spanish lexical acquisition through a myriad of approaches and topics.

Research into lexical issues has been one of the most rapidly growing areas of second language acquisition studies in recent years, and understandably so: the importance of vocabulary can hardly be denied. Words are the key to every instance of communication, both spoken and written. This volume concentrates on vocabulary in written language, mostly in academic settings. The writers of the chapters come from different countries and universities, and, naturally, represent their own academic backgrounds, though they all share a common interest in investigating the characteristics of L2 lexis as it manifests itself in the written production of students at various stages of their language learning careers. The target language (L2) in the studies reported in the volume is English, except in one study on the lexical competence of multilingual learners of French. The subjects’ native languages include Czech, Danish, Finnish, Hungarian, and Swedish, thus representing several different language families. Each chapter constitutes an independent unit, but together the studies reported in them give the reader a varied and extensive picture of lexical issues in L2 writing. The authors approach their topics from different perspectives and use diverse research methods, adding to the multifaceted nature of the volume. The book will be of interest to researchers, educators and students of second language acquisition and applied linguistics.

This book examines the simultaneous contribution of learner vocabulary size and speed to second language performance differences across learner levels and settings. Harrington considers vocabulary size and speed, as reflected in retrieval speed and consistency, as a three-dimensional measurement construct termed lexical facility. While size and retrieval speed are generally known, this is the first attempt to incorporate consistency, as measured by the coefficient of variation, as an index of vocabulary skill. Part 1 describes the three dimensions and the roles they play on lower level text processing and thus on second language performance more generally. Part 2 reports on seven studies and related research that investigate the sensitivity of the three dimensions, both individually and in combination, to proficiency differences in common domains of academic English performance. Harrington’s framework and the theoretical and methodological issues that arise are presented in a manner accessible to a wide readership, including second language acquisition vocabulary researchers, testing and assessment practitioners, and those interested in second language research methodology.

Researchers have looked into the role of individual differences in second language learning and found that differences between learners in areas such as language aptitude, language learning motivation and exposure to the language influence second language learning. Most of this research concerned adults. Far fewer studies have addressed the role of individual differences in second language learning of young learners. As second language learning programmes tend to start earlier than before and children are nowadays frequently exposed to a foreign language in social settings such as online games and social media, studying the role of individual differences in young learners can contribute both to SLA-theories and to evidence-based L2 education. This book discusses recent findings concerning the role of individual differences in language learning in young learners. The chapters in the book concern different topics linked to internal individual differences such as language aptitude, motivation, attitude and external individual differences such as exposure and type of instruction, the relative contribution of internal and external factors to language learning, and the interplay between the two types of individual differences.

This book introduces an innovative collection of easy-to-use computer programs that have been developed to measure and model vocabulary knowledge. The book aims to help researchers discover new instruments for lexical analysis, and provides a theoretical framework in which studies with such tools could be conducted. Each of the programs comes with a short manual explaining how to use the program, an example of a published paper that uses the program and a set of questions that readers can develop into proper projects. The programs can be used in real research projects and have the potential to break new ground for research in L2 vocabulary acquisition. The book will be of great use to final year undergraduates and masters students in applied linguistics, second language acquisition, psycholinguistics and language testing and to PhD students doing research methods courses.