Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-ph5wq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T03:29:22.626Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Second language vocabulary acquisition from language input and from form-focused activities

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2009

Batia Laufer*
Affiliation:
University of Haifa, Israelbatialau@research.haifa.ac.il

Extract

Interest in L2 vocabulary learning and teaching started long before the nineteen-eighties (for references to earlier studies, see Rob Waring's database http://www1.harenet.ne.jp/~waring/vocab/vocrefs/vocref.html) but it declined with the advent of generative linguistics to the point of discrimination and neglect (Meara 1980). In 1986, I argued that vocabulary was about to acquire a legitimate and prominent place within applied linguistics (Laufer 1986), but I did not envisage the vast quantities of lexical research that would have been produced in the following two decades. One of the central concerns of vocabulary researchers is the source of L2 vocabulary learning. Is it L2 input, enhanced input, interaction, communicative tasks, non-communicative ‘artificial’ exercises, list learning, or repetition? A similar question is addressed by SLA researchers in general. This similarity of interests, which demonstrates the integration of vocabulary into mainstream SLA, prompted me to define the topic of this timeline as I did. And since the field of SLA developed in the 1980s, this timeline starts in the nineteen-eighties. I focus here on the external sources of learning, i.e. language input and instructional techniques, and not on learner-related variables, like motivation, L1, age, or strategies of learning. Nor do I focus on any other areas of lexical research, important as they may be, such as the construct of vocabulary knowledge, lexical development, testing, bilingual mental lexicon, or corpora analyses.

Type
Research Timeline
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

DeKeyser, R. M. (1998). Beyond focus on form: Cognitive perspective on learning and practical second language grammar. In Doughty, C. & Williams, J. (eds.), Focus on form in classroom second language acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 4263.Google Scholar
Ellis, R. (2001). Investigating form-focused instruction. Language Learning 51.1 (supplement 1), 146.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krashen, S. D. (1985). The Input Hypothesis: Issues and implications. New York: Longman.Google Scholar
Laufer, B. (1986). Possible changes in attitude towards vocabulary acquisition research. International Review of Applied Linguistics 24.1, 6975.Google Scholar
Long, M. (1991). Focus on Form: A design feature in language teaching methodology. In de Bot, K., Ginsberg, R. & Kramsch, C. (eds.), Foreign language research in cross-cultural perspective. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 3952.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meara, P. M. (1980). Vocabulary acquisition: A neglected aspect of language learning. Language Teaching and Linguistics: Abstracts 13.4, 221246.Google Scholar
Nation, I. S. P. (1982). Beginning to learn foreign vocabulary: A review of the research. RELC Journal 13.1, 1436.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schmidt, R. (1990). The role of consciousness in second language learning. Applied Linguistics 11.2, 1745.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Swain, M. (1985). Communicative competence: Some roles of comprehensible input and comprehensible output in its development. In Gass, S. M. & Madden, C. G. (eds.), Input in second language acquisition. Rowley, MA: Newbury House, 235253.Google Scholar
VanPatten, B. (1990). Attending to content and form in the input: An experiment in consciousness. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 12.3, 287301.CrossRefGoogle Scholar