Multiple Meanings in the EFL Lexicon
Journal Title: International Journal of Curriculum and Instruction - Year 2017, Vol 9, Issue 2
Abstract
The extent of words with multiple meanings in English has important implications for the vocabulary learning load of EFL learners. The greater proportion of such words among the target vocabulary implies an increased learning load. The present study investigates the extent of multiple word meanings among the most frequent 9,000 words of the English language, which we refer here as the EFL lexicon. These include two subsets of vocabulary ‘the high frequency vocabulary’ covering the most frequent 3,000 words and ‘the mid-frequency vocabulary’, which covers the subsequent 6,000 words in the 4,001 -9,000 frequency range. The meanings of 225 words randomly sampled from nine word frequency lists based on the British National Corpus were checked using the Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries website. The results indicated that 64% of the words in the entire sample had multiple meanings. The percentage was much higher among the high frequency vocabulary (95%) but dropped considerably (48%) in the mid-frequency vocabulary. The words had 2.49 meanings on average amounting to a learning load of over 22,000 meanings for the 9,000 words. The high frequency vocabulary had more meanings, 4 meanings per word, suggesting an even heavier load for lower proficiency learners for whom this vocabulary is a common first target. The extent of multiple meanings was greater in adjectives: there was a greater percentage of adjectives with multiple meanings (85%) and the number of meanings per word was also higher (2.93 meanings) warranting special pedagogic attention.
Authors and Affiliations
Meral Ozturk
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP364038
- DOI -
- Views 107
- Downloads 0
An Analysis of Gerontion by T.S. Eliot
Thomas Stearns Eliot, who is believed to be one of the most important poets of his time in the English and American Poetry, as well as today, left many poems in most of which he criticized and even rejected the Western P...
Gender Differences in Perception of Body, Expressions of Body Image and Body Image Coping Strategies among Turkish Adolescents
The importance of body change during the adolescence has been well documented within the literature. In this study, gender differences were investigated in the use of adolescents' perceptions of all body images, body par...
Student Perceptions of Online and Face-to-Face Learning
The rapid expansion of online learning in higher education in recent years has attracted a large number of students. In this paper, the researchers examined students’ perceptions of both online and face-to-face learning...
Developing a Curriculum for the Transition Program of Special Learners in the Philippines
This paper focuses on creating a curriculum development model and curriculum framework for the Transition Program designed for special learners with intellectual and physical disabilities. It explains the idea of a trans...
Preparing University Students in Nigeria for Global Citizenship through Virtual Learning
The study sought to find out the extent undergraduate students in Anambra State Universities in Nigeria possess the competencies for virtual learning and the extent they actually engage in virtual learning. The study whi...