March 2008

Volume 11, Number 4

Modelling and Assessing Vocabulary Knowledge

Helmut Daller, James Milton & Jeanine

Author :
Treffers-Daller, Eds. (2007)

Publisher : Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press

Pages I SBN Pr ice

Pp. xiii +
978-0-521-70327-7 (paper) £ £21.10; $41.00 U.S.
274

As the introduction to this collection of papers points out, vocabulary research in

foreign language teaching is far from the 'Cinderella subject' it was in the past; it
is now recognised as both an important and extremely dynamic research area.
Given this renewal of interest in the field and the rapidly growing number of
contributions to it, Modelling and Assessing Vocabular y Knowledge is a timely
publication. The central question addressed by the papers is how to assess the
extent and richness of learners' knowledge and use of vocabulary in a foreign
language, given the multidimensional nature of lexical knowledge. This question
has no easy answer, so we shouldn't be surprised to find many different
approaches in the studies presented. These studies are not all EFL/ ESL focussed;
a refreshing aspect of the book is that it pools insights from research into
vocabulary learning in different languages.

One of the strengths of this book is how the initial chapters set a clear context
for the studies that follow, with a very readable Editors' introduction to basic
terms and concepts. This opens up the book to readers less familiar with the
topics. The introduction also includes detailed, but digestible, summaries of the
studies in the remaining chapters. These capsules give an overview of the
research and direct the reader to chapters of particular interest—a valuable
function as some of the studies are comprehensive and contain a wealth of
statistics which may be off-putting to the more casual reader.

By way of introducing the fundamental issues recurring throughout the book,

Paul Nation in chapter 1 outlines the six main factors critical to accurately
measuring vocabulary knowledge:

learner attitude and individual variability

TESL-EJ 11.4, March 2008 Daller, Milton & Treffers-Daller/Allan 1

 appropriateness of frequency data
the unit of counting used (word families/ lemmas)
language of instruction used in testing (L1/ L2)
the need to use multiple measures to reflect the multidimensional nature of
vocabulary knowledge
the need to use measures that focus on actual language use

The chapters that follow present the individual, very practical studies, which are
situated in the 'real world' of language teaching and carried out by
teachers/ researchers trying to find answers to real problems. However, some of
the studies are - necessarily - quite complex and technical, geared perhaps more
to the specialist than to the general reader (and here's where the summaries in
the I ntro can guide). They are grouped into sections reflecting Nation's
architecture as follows:

vocabulary and learner differences

the unit of assessment and multiple vocabulary measures
metaphors and measures in vocabulary knowledge
vocabulary measures in use

I n the section on vocabulary and learner differences, Milton picks up on the

paradox that test validity relies on the assumption that learners will behave in a
reasonable and consistent manner, yet as we all know, learners in a test situation
do not necessarily do so; they may be unmotivated and give up, or they may take
a strategic approach, using guesswork. Such learner variability potentially
compromises test validity. Milton's study also investigates the assumption that
there is a predictable relationship between word frequency and acquisition, i.e.,
learners learn the most frequent words first. This is important as many of the
accepted tests of lexical size depend on this assumption. He concludes that this
frequency model "appears to be a really very cogent model of learning as a
whole" (p. 57), but that there is individual variation, particularly in the most
frequent 2000 words, and this must be particularly considered with lower level
learners. The following study by Eyckmans et al. examines learners' response
behaviour in yes/ no tests in which learners explicitly report on their knowledge of
given words. Following an extensive study considering whether a computer-based
test can overcome validity problems, the researchers conclude that the validity of
this format must be questioned, as it appears not to be suitable for all types of
learners.

I n the second section, Richards and Malvern begin by giving an overview of

problems in vocabulary testing and discuss the now widely accepted need for
multiple measures, going on to illustrate the model they have developed for
assessing lexical diversity (D). Van Hout and Vermeer then compare measures of
lexical richness, highlighting both the unsatisfactory performance of such
measures and the need to draw on large-scale corpora for the frequency data
they can offer. Fitzpatrick next looks at problems with tests, specifically Lex-30
(Meara and Fitzpatrick, 2000), a productive vocabulary test being adopted
without sufficient validation. She also warns that in our zeal to find the perfect
test, we may miss important insights that comparing performance on several
tests might reveal, "about ways in which different learners might access lexical
knowledge, information about the threshold at which receptively known items

TESL-EJ 11.4, March 2008 Daller, Milton & Treffers-Daller/Allan 2

 start to be used actively, the effect of different L1s on test performance and the
relationship between aspects of word knowledge at different stages of learner
development" (pp. 131-2). To conclude this section, the theme of lexical richness
is taken up again in Chapters 7 and 8, this time in spoken language, with Tidball
and Treffers-Daller exploring multiple measures in spoken French, and Daller
and Xue looking at oral proficiency in Chinese EFL learners.

The third section moves from vocabulary breadth to depth. Both studies included
address the concept of lexical networks. Wilks and Meara argue for a more
formal approach to the vocabulary-network metaphor; their study applies graph
theoretical principles to word association data. Shur also draws on graph theory,
using small-world networks as a way of investigating word association networks.

The final section, looking at vocabulary measures in use, is perhaps most

relevant to the working teacher. This begins with a Dutch school study by
Hacquebord and Stellingwerf exploring the relationship between vocabulary
knowledge and reading, followed by Lorenzo-Dus's chapter stressing the
importance of both quantitative and qualitative approaches in vocabulary
research, as illustrated in her study of oral proficiency interviews in Spanish.
Finally, Daller and Phelan look at teachers' ratings of EFL essays, examining
first their ratings on different linguistic aspects of the essays, then comparing
these with the lexical richness of the essays according to three different measures
(type token ratio, Guiraud's I ndex, and D), in order to investigate how teachers
may be influenced by lexical richness.

Modelling and Assessing Vocabular y Knowledge is a useful book. The

introduction and initial chapter, with their summaries of basic terms and
concepts and outline of fundamental issues are, an excellent starting point for
the newcomer to the field. To those already conducting or embarking on such
research, the detailed accounts of current studies are both informative and
thought-provoking. However, since vocabulary acquisition is such a vast topic to
explore, this book is necessarily limited. I t follows the general research bias
towards breadth in vocabulary studies, while the neglected area of vocabulary
depth receives relatively little attention, and even this is from a particular
viewpoint. Meanwhile, as the editors acknowledge (p. 9), fluency, or automaticity
of access to lexical items, is not addressed in any of the studies. However, this
too reflects the current state of research in the field, and it is hoped that future
collections will redress this imbalance.

Rachel Allan
Applied Language Centre, University College Dublin
<Rachel_Allan alc.ucd.ie>

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