Search results for "Vocabulary"
showing 10 items of 283 documents
Lexical verbs in a medical case-report wordlist
2018
Clinical case reports or clinical cases (CRs) are, perhaps, the most widely read text type in medicine, since they contain a detailed description of the patient’s medical history and symptoms and thus furnish ample teaching material for physicians-in-training. For non-native speakers of English in medicine, autonomous learning is often restricted because of a lack of medical lexicon, poor academic vocabulary, and weak lexical verb use. Here, we present the results of an investigation of lexical verbs: their distribution, classification, and contextual use in the different sections of the genre CRs. We suggest that lexical verbs with contextual use should be included in medical dictionaries …
The simultaneous development of receptive skills in an orthographically transparent second language
2014
Learning to read in an orthographically very shallow language may seem easy. However, for adults who are non-literate in their first language (L1), have no experience of formal education, and have to acquire literacy in a new language (L2), learning to read at all can be a formidable task. In this article, the results of a case study of the outcome of the first 10 months of Finnish literacy training for five immigrant women (24–45 years of age) are presented. Relationships are sought between the participants' achieved reading skills, their oral receptive vocabulary, their knowledge of letters, their phonological working memory and their visual memory. The results of the study show that even…
Getting rid of the Chi-square and Log-likelihood tests for analysing vocabulary differences between corpora
2018
Log-likelihood and Chi-square tests are probably the most popular statistical tests used in corpus linguistics, especially when the research is aiming to describe the lexical variations between corpora. However, because this specific use of the Chi-square test is not valid, it produces far too many significant results. This paper explains the source of the problem (i.e., the non-independence of the observations), the reasons for which the usual solutions are not acceptable and which kinds of statistical test should be used instead. A corpus analysis conducted on the lexical differences between American and British English is then reported, in order to demonstrate the problem and to confirm …
A Survey of University Students’ Knowledge of Vocabulary Learning Strategies and Influential Factors in Middle East
2016
In this study, the most and the least common vocabulary learning strategies was explored among Eastern Mediterranean University international students. Besides, the role of personal factors such as gender and English proficiency level of students were considered. After distributing the questionnaire, the data were analyzed applying t-test and ANOVA. It was revealed that the level of importance of vocabulary learning strategy use was moderate for the EMU international students. Furthermore, it was found that metacognitive strategies and social strategies are the most and the least common vocabulary learning strategies respectively utilized by EMU international students for learning vocabular…
“You Can Stand Under My Umbrella”: Immersion, CLIL and Bilingual Education. A Response to Cenoz, Genesee & Gorter (2013)
2014
Classrooms the world over are full of people who, for different reasons, are learning additional languages and/or are studying through languages that are not their first. Gaining insight into such contexts is complicated for researchers and practitioners alike by the myriad of contextual variables that come with different implementations and make comparison and generalization a tricky business. We welcome Cenoz et al.’s (2013) article as an important contribution to the debate on how best to tackle this problem. In this Forum piece we would like to, however, redress the balance on two issues: the fact that terminologies have histories and the emphases on the research agenda suggested for fu…
Kindergarten pre-reading skills predict Grade 9 reading comprehension (PISA Reading) but fail to explain gender difference
2020
AbstractOne of the aims for compulsory education is to diminish or alleviate differences in children’s skills existing prior to school entry. However, a growing gender gap in reading development has increasingly been documented. Regrettably, there is scant evidence on whether differences between genders (favouring girls) have their roots in pre-reading skills or whether determining mechanisms are related to factors to do with schooling. We examined the extent to which pre-reading skills assessed in Kindergarten (age 6) predict reading comprehension in Grade 9 (age 15) and, whether the gender difference in reading comprehension can be explained by gender differences in the Kindergarten pre-r…
Facebookland: o mundo bizarro-linguístico
2019
Abstract This article investigates the dynamics of contemporary Romanian, focusing on various linguistic structures typically used on social network sites, through which the specific content and interaction strategies are being deployed in virtual communities. The article is part of a larger project devoted to the study of linguistic impoverishment (affecting both the vocabulary and the grammatical structure of the language), social networks being only one of the areas where these “uglified” linguistic structures come from: the mass-media (both print and broadcast), advertising (outdoor, indoor, television commercials), Internet forums, corporate jargon, etc. The structures under scrutiny a…
L2 English vocabulary breadth and knowledge of derivational morphology : One or two constructs?
2022
Derivational morphology (DM) and how it can be assessed have been investigated relatively rarely in language learning and testing research. The goal of this study is to add to the understanding of the nature of DM knowledge, exploring whether and how it is separable from vocabulary breadth. Eight L2 (second or foreign language) English DM knowledge measures and three measures of the size of the English vocabulary were administered to 120 learners. We conducted two confirmatory factor analyses, one with one underlying factor and the other treating vocabulary breadth and DM as separate. As neither model had a satisfactory fit without introducing a residual covariance to the two-factor model,…
NOVCOJUSĪ LEKSIKA J. LANGIJA VĀRDNĪCĀ (1685): NAUDAS VIENĪBU NOSAUKUMI
2021
The Latvian language dictionary of J. Langius (1685) does not contain a large number of terms denoting monetary units – altogether there are 11 of them (ārtaugs, dālderis, diķis, eiduks, grosis, kauss, mārka, skatiks, sķiliņģis, vērdiņģis, zelta gabals), as well as some other money-related lexemes (e.g., sīknauda, vara nauda etc.) which are not designations of monetary units and therefore are not analyzed in this article. These lexemes are included in most 17–19th century dictionaries, and sometimes are borrowed from one dictionary into another. For instance, J. Langius has taken over the words included in the dictionary of G. Mancelius, but later J. Lange, in his turn, refers to J. Langius…
El lèxic cortès i cavalleresc en <em>Curial e Güelfa</em>: mots patrimonials i interferències culturals
2015
Curial and Guelfa, by an unknown author, is a chivalric romance written in a realistic style. Planned within the medieval tradition, although infl uenced by Italian Humanism, it was composed in fluent Catalan, but subject to several linguistic and cultural interferences. It was probably conceived and written in Italy in the decade of 1440. The author not only knows deeply the courteous volgare language, but also the literary one (especially Boccaccio), with which he enriches a Catalan language probably learnt in Valencia. He also innovates in the courtly and chivalric vocabulary of his mother tongue with the introduction of expressions, proverbs and words –both colloquial and learned– not o…