The words in a language or language variety are often rank ordered in lists that are meant to reflect the relative importance of those words to language users and learners of a language. This rank ordering is done on the basis of the relative prevalence of words in a corpus. Lexical prevalence is often operationalized as measures of frequency,…

Four papers by Brandon Kramer, Tohru Matsuo, Aaron Sponseller, Young Ae Kim, Suzuka Nishiyama, and Stuart McLean; Stuart Benson and Naheen Madarbakus-Ring; Michael McGuire and Jennifer Larson-Hall; and Atsushi Mizumoto, Geoffrey Pinchbeck, and Stuart McLean were presented in the morning session of the 2021 Vocabulary SIG Symposium held in Kyoto,…

There is little dispute that formulaic sequences form an important part of the lexicon, but to date there has been no principled way to prioritize the inclusion of such items in pedagogic materials, such as ESL/EFL textbooks or tests of vocabulary knowledge. While wordlists have been used for decades, they have only provided information about…

Word Links, an effective strategy for developing students' vocabulary, is based on four principles. It provides contextual and definitional information; offers repeated exposure to words and opportunities to practice them; encourages students to think about relationships among word meanings; and involves active engagement in learning tasks. Yopp…

Examines the Macmillan "Spelling" books in terms of the concept of "hyperrationalization": the imposing of unproven techniques and/or the setting of unrealistic expectations. Explicates the assumptions and beliefs implicit in the "Spelling" books and studies children's interests in the words and concepts in the…