+

Testing Lexical Knowledge: A Linguistic Analysis

of Vocabulary Assessment
Mareshah E. Peterson, M.A. Candidate
University of Texas at El Paso
Department of Languages and Linguistics

+ What is lexical
knowledge?

What does it
mean to know a
word?
Many vocabulary acquisition studies have
measured only one aspect of knowledge
meaning - with one test.
(Webb 2005)

Word Meaning Relationships:

Polysemy/Homonymy/Synonymy
n

How do you test the depth

of knowledge of items with
up to 35 related senses
within the limitations of a
classroom exam?
Word forms that are
semantically unrelated.
Primary vs Secondary
sememes
Absence of true synonyms

Run - to go with quick steps on

alternate feet
-Oxford English Dictionary

Testing formats: Homonymy vs

Homography (Ming-Tzu 2004)
n
n

heir-air
bat-bat

Productive Mastery
n

-> recognition -> use

nA

continuum? (Melka 1997)

nSeparate

processes? (Meara 1990)

nDifferences

in measurement

The Corson Measure of Passive

Vocabulary (1983)
n

What is the relationship between active and passive mastery?

The wide-ranging use of words by a speaker is not a

guarantee of cognitive superiority, nor is their absence in
oral performance an indication of cognitive weakness.
D. Corson 1983

The Corson Measure of Passive

Vocabulary (1983)
n

What is being measured?

Passive Vocabulary Measure:

Results
n

Variations in register

West Indian 15-year-olds

Non-verbal cognitive scores

show no variance among 15year-old peers.

Other Measures: TOEFL

n

In-depth vs discrete point items in the TOEFL (Qian, 2008)

VS.

Other Measures: SATs

Connecting the Research

n No

single comprehensive instrument.

n No

definitive framework for word knowledge..

Where do we go from here?

n

We as educators should re-evaluate the predictive power of

current standardized vocabulary measures.

We should continue to pursue a multi-disciplinary approach

to the areas of content knowledge which can benefit from
greater interaction with formal linguistics and Second
Language acquisition research.

We need to develop instruments of measurement that

eliminate the underlying monolingual bias, in order to better
evaluate the lexical knowledge of all our students in an
increasingly global community.

References
n

Corson, David J.(1983) The Corson Measure of Passive Vocabulary. Language & Speech, 26(1), 3.

Horwich, P. (1995). Meaning, use and truth: On whether a use-theory of meaning is precluded by the
requirement that whatever constitutes the meaning of a predicate be capable of determining the set of things of
which the predicate is true and to which it ought to be applied. Mind, 104(414), 355-368.

Meara, P. (1990). A note on passive vocabulary. Second Language Research 6, 2:150-154.

Melka, F. (1997). Receptive vs productive aspects of vocabulary. In Sschmitt, N., and McCarthy, M. (eds),
Vocabulary:Description, Acquisition, and Pedagogy. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press. p. 84-102.

Ming-Tzu. (2004). Word meaning in academic english: Homography in the academic word list. Applied
Linguistics, 25(3), 291-314. P. David Pearson. Vocabulary assessment: What we know and what we need to know

Qian, D. (2008) From Single Words to Passages: Contextual Effects on Predictive Power of Vocabulary Measures
for Assessing Reading Performance, Language Assessment Quarterly, 5:1, 1-19, DOI:
10.1080/15434300701776138

Qian, & Schedl. (2004). Evaluation of an in-depth vocabulary knowledge measure for assessing reading
performance. Language Testing, 21(1), 28-52. doi:10.1191/0265532204lt273oa

Schmitt, N. (2010). Researching Vocabulary. Candlin, Christopher N., and Hall, David R. (eds), Research and
Practice in Applied Linguistics. New York: Palgrave Macmillan

Webb, S. (2005) Receptive and Productive Vocabulary Learning: The effects of reading and writing on
vocabulary knowledge. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 27:33-52

Thank You!
Mareshah E. Peterson

Department of Languages and Linguistics

msambrano2@miners.utep.edu
utep.academia.edu/MareshahPeterson