Vocabulary and writing in a first and second language : processes and development / Dorte Albrechtsen, Kirsten Haastrup and Birgit Henriksen ; foreword, Alister Cumming.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Albrechtsen, Dorte.

Contributor:

Haastrup, Kirsten.

Henriksen, Birgit.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English language--Study and teaching--Danish speakers.

English language.

Danish language--Study and teaching.

Danish language.

Second language acquisition.

Physical Description:

xvii, 225 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Basingstoke ; New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.

Summary:

Vocabulary and Writing in a First and Second Language is based on a large-scale empirical study. The innovative feature of the research was that the same students were asked to do the same tasks in both languages while reporting their thinking as they went along. Furthermore, they had to undertake the same tasks even though they were of very different experience, ranging from young children at school to university students. Three areas of learners' competencies and skills were explored: vocabulary knowledge, word-guessing strategies and writing. The authors further explore the relationship between the skills and describe the level of development for individual learners within the three areas. In all cases, statistical and qualitative analyses are offered based on the learners' own 'think-aloud' reports. Both researchers and teachers of language will find this in-depth approach useful in understanding the processes of both first and second language performance.

Contents:

1.1 What is this book about? 1

1.2 The linguistic situation and educational setting in Denmark 3

1.3 Focus of the study 5

1.4 Informants 6

1.5 Introspective methods 9

1.6 Tasks 10

1.7 The data collection procedure 11

1.8 Theoretical framework and key constructs 13

1.9 Research questions 18

2 Declarative Lexical Knowledge / Birgit Henriksen 22

2.1 Zooming in on learners' lexical competence 22

2.2 Lexical competence - with a focus on network knowledge 26

2.3 Different ways of investigating lexical network knowledge 32

2.4 Investigating the learners' network knowledge 39

2.5 Looking at the informants' vocabulary size 57

2.6 Correlations between the lexical measures 61

3 Lexical Inferencing Procedures in Two Languages / Kirsten Haastrup 67

3.1 Situating the study within the field of lexical inferencing research 68

3.2 The lexical inferencing study 72

3.3 Results 91

3.5 Perspectives on research design and teaching 108

4 Writing in Two Languages / Dorte Albrechtsen 112

4.1 Previous research 114

4.2 Theoretical background 117

4.3 The study 120

4.4 A qualitative analysis of the verbalizations of three informants 143

4.5 Discussion and implications 153

5 Lexical Knowledge, Lexical Inferencing and Writing 160

5.1 Bringing the three studies together 161

5.2 Correlations across the studies 163

5.3 Learner profiles 172

5.4 Summary and discussion of main findings 190

6 Implications for Research and Instruction 195

6.1 Research implications 195

6.2 Perspectives on instruction 198

A.1 Statistics 203

A.1.1 Description of the statistical procedures 203

A.1.2 Statistical details for Chapter 4 203

A.2 Description of response types in the word association data 206

A.3 Lexical inferencing 207

A.3.1 Think-aloud instructions 207

A.3.2 The L2 lexical inferencing task 208

A.3.3 Description of the interscorer procedure for lexical inferencing 209

A.4 Writing 210

A.4.1 Writing prompts 210

A.4.2 Transcription conventions for verbal protocols in the writing study 211

A.4.3 Interscorer reliability for the analysis of the verbal protocols and for the assessment of the essays 211.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 213-221) and index.

ISBN:

9781403939661

1403939667

OCLC:

153597739

Online:

Contributor biographical information

Publisher description