Lexical Diversity and Language Development: Quanitfication and Assessment

✍ Scribed by David Malvern, Brian J. Richards, Ngoni Chipere, Pilar Durán

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2004
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 270
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Vocabulary richness, including lexical diversity and use of rare words, has an important role in assessing proficiency, diagnosing progress and testing theory in the study of language development. This book first reviews different methods for quantifying how vocabulary is deployed in spontaneous speech and writing, and then introduces an alternative approach which can assess overall lexical diversity, measure morphology development and compare the development of different word classes. The new approach is illustrated by its application to first and second language learners.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover......Page 1
Contents......Page 8
List of Tables......Page 12
List of Figures......Page 14
Acknowledgements......Page 16
Part I: Measuring Lexical Diversity......Page 18
Lexical diversity versus vocabulary richness......Page 20
Overview of the content of this monograph......Page 21
Lexical diversity......Page 22
Research using lexical diversity as a variable......Page 23
Conclusion......Page 31
The number of different words (NDW)......Page 33
The type–token ratio (TTR)......Page 36
Other linguistic measures of range......Page 42
Transformations of TTR......Page 43
Conclusion......Page 46
A seminal paper......Page 48
The harmonic series hypothesis and further developments......Page 53
Using population statistics......Page 57
The most complete formulation......Page 58
A mathematical model for diversity......Page 64
Operationalising the model......Page 66
A mathematical expression for ideal curves......Page 67
Producing the graphs from real data......Page 68
Standardising how the measurement is made......Page 71
Making the measurement, D, and vocd......Page 72
Summary......Page 74
Part II: Validation of the Model and its Application to Language Corpora......Page 78
Testing vocd......Page 80
Investigating sensitivity to sample size......Page 81
Reliability......Page 85
Morphemicisation......Page 86
Criterion-related validity......Page 87
Discussion......Page 88
Conclusion......Page 90
The Bristol Corpus......Page 93
Measures from the Bristol project......Page 95
Method......Page 97
Results......Page 98
Discussion......Page 106
Conclusion......Page 110
Background: the oral interview......Page 112
Method......Page 115
Results......Page 119
Conclusion......Page 125
7 A New Measure of Inflectional Diversity and its Application to English and Spanish Data Sets......Page 127
Inflectional diversity in the Bristol Corpus......Page 128
The Spanish data......Page 130
Conclusion......Page 133
Part III: Different Word Categories and their Diversity: Type–Type versus Type–Token......Page 136
Type–type ratios......Page 138
Rare words......Page 140
Vocabulary composition and early lexical style......Page 151
The 'noun bias' issue......Page 155
Nouns versus verbs: the effect of sample size......Page 159
Conclusion......Page 167
9 Lexical Diversity and Lexical Sophistication in First Language Writing......Page 169
Overview of the study......Page 170
Method......Page 171
Results......Page 179
Discussion......Page 188
Part IV: Conclusion......Page 194
Flawed measures and confused results......Page 196
A more robust measure......Page 197
Interpreting the values of D......Page 198
Cross-linguistic comparisons of lexical diversity......Page 200
In conclusion......Page 201
Notes......Page 202
B......Page 204
C......Page 205
E......Page 206
H......Page 207
L......Page 208
M......Page 210
O......Page 213
R......Page 214
S......Page 215
T......Page 216
Y......Page 218
Z......Page 219
References......Page 220
Appendices......Page 236
I: Key to the CHAT Transcripts in Appendices II–IV......Page 238
II: Extract from a Transcript in the Bristol Corpus......Page 239
III: A French Transcript from the Reading Corpus......Page 241
IV: Extract from the Manchester Corpus Illustrating the %mor Tier......Page 243
Preparation of files......Page 245
The output from vocd......Page 246
Text-handling options......Page 247
Combining options on the command line......Page 251
VI: Example of standard output from vocd using a transcript from the New England Corpus......Page 252
VII: Output from the limiting relative diversity (LRD) option in vocd using a file from Anne (anne03a.cha) in the Manchester Corpus......Page 255
C......Page 261
D......Page 262
H......Page 263
L......Page 264
M......Page 265
P......Page 266
S......Page 267
T......Page 268
Y......Page 269
Z......Page 270

✦ Subjects

Языки и языкознание;Лингвистика;Лексикология, лексикография, терминоведение;