Usage-based theory has proposed that learning of linguistic constructions is facilitated by input that contains few high-frequency exemplars, in what is known as a skewed (or Zipfian) input distribution. Early empirical work provided support to this idea, but subsequent L2 research has provided mixed findings. However, previous approaches have not…

Recent studies suggest that developing L2 receptive knowledge of single words is associated with increased receptive knowledge of collocations. However, no study to date has directly examined the interrelationship between productive word knowledge and productive collocation knowledge. To address this gap, the present study administered a…

Academic lectures are potential sources of vocabulary learning for second language learners studying at universities where English is the medium of instruction, as well as those in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) programs. Topic-related vocabulary is likely to occur frequently in academic texts, and academic speech consists of a reasonable…

Sixty target words were selected from two sets of graded readers. One set contained three readers with the same title, "The Railway Children," and the other set, three books about Sherlock Holmes. Students chose one of the two sets to read and were given a pretest, an immediate posttest, and a five-week delayed posttest on their…

This article reports on the design and use of a profiler for lexical sophistication (i.e., use of advanced vocabulary), which was created to assess the lexical richness of intermediate and advanced Swedish second language (L2) learners' French and Italian. It discusses how teachers' judgments (TJs) of word difficulty can contribute to the…