Tefl 279 Rich View Of Lexical Competence 4
A rich view of lexical competence Peter J. Robinson
In this article I begin by examining some features of the negotiation of meaning between learners and teachers, where the goal of the interaction is to convey the meaning of a technical word from the teacher to a learner. I suggest that this examination leads us to distinguish between the declarative knowledge
‘that’ words have particular meanings, and the procedures we typically employ for realizing or ‘achieving’ this declarative knowledge.
These procedures form part of our ‘procedural’ knowledge of ‘how’ to negotiate. A communicative view of the interactive nature of lexical negotiation requires that we focus as much on procedures as we do on the more narrowly defined declarative meanings which specialist words have. I then argue that this requires us to take a ‘richer’ view of what is involved in lexical competence than that which many vocabulary learning materials seem to be based on. My own proposal is to adopt Canale and Swain’s
(1980) checklist of the dimensions of communicative competence, and I present exercise types which exemplify how these dimensions could be covered lexically.
General words, technical words, and negotiating meaning
There is an obvious, and much-investigated difference between specific, technical words and the more general
‘core’ words often used to convey their meanings.1
The enabling facility which some words have has long been recognized.
It is particularly evident in the simplified language of
‘motherese’
and ‘foreigner talk’, and is as much in evidence in written language as in spoken language2.
For example, the enabling facility of words is a criterion for selecting the words used in dictionary definitions, like this one from the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English:
vermicelli: a food made from flour paste in the form of very thin strings which have
been
dried
and are made
soft again
by boiling.
The enabling facility of such words as made soft, the form of thin
In this article I begin by examining some features of the negotiation of meaning between learners and teachers, where the goal of the interaction is to convey the meaning of a technical word from the teacher to a learner. I suggest that this examination leads us to distinguish between the declarative knowledge
‘that’ words have particular meanings, and the procedures we typically employ for realizing or ‘achieving’ this declarative knowledge.
These procedures form part of our ‘procedural’ knowledge of ‘how’ to negotiate. A communicative view of the interactive nature of lexical negotiation requires that we focus as much on procedures as we do on the more narrowly defined declarative meanings which specialist words have. I then argue that this requires us to take a ‘richer’ view of what is involved in lexical competence than that which many vocabulary learning materials seem to be based on. My own proposal is to adopt Canale and Swain’s
(1980) checklist of the dimensions of communicative competence, and I present exercise types which exemplify how these dimensions could be covered lexically.
General words, technical words, and negotiating meaning
There is an obvious, and much-investigated difference between specific, technical words and the more general
‘core’ words often used to convey their meanings.1
The enabling facility which some words have has long been recognized.
It is particularly evident in the simplified language of
‘motherese’
and ‘foreigner talk’, and is as much in evidence in written language as in spoken language2.
For example, the enabling facility of words is a criterion for selecting the words used in dictionary definitions, like this one from the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English:
vermicelli: a food made from flour paste in the form of very thin strings which have
been
dried
and are made
soft again
by boiling.
The enabling facility of such words as made soft, the form of thin
References: Canale, M. 1983. ‘From communicative competence Canale, M. and M. Swain. 1980. ‘Theoretical bases of Carter, R. 1986. ‘Core vocabulary and discourse Cramp, A. 1987. ‘Setting up a computer networking Gairns, R. and S. Redman. 1986. Working with Words. Hasan, R. 1984. ‘Coherence and cohesive harmony’ Hutchinson, T. and A. Waters. 1981. ‘Performance and competence McCarthy, M. J. 1984. ‘A new look at vocabulary in