1、1 Historical trends in second language vocabulary instructionCheryl Boyd ZimmermanIntroductionVocabulary is central to language and of critical importance to the typical languagelearner. Nevertheless, the teaching and learning of vocabulary have been undervaluedin the field of second language acquis
2、ition (SLA) throughout its varying stages and upto the present day. SLA researchers and teachers have typically prioritized syntax andphonology as “more serious candidates for theorizing“ Richards, 1976, p. 77), morecentral to linguistic theory, and more critical to language pedagogy. This chapter w
3、illseek to show how vocabulary has been viewed, researched, and presented throughoutthe history of SLA. The purpose of this survey is to build a better understanding of thepast and to indicate likely developments in lexical pedagogy in the future.The Grammar Translation MethodThe Grammar Translation
4、 Method was first introduced to teach modern languages inpublic schools in Prussia at the end of the eighteenth century. The primary goals ofthis method were to prepare students to read and write classical materials and to passstandardized exams (Howatt, 1984; Rivers, 1981). Like courses in classica
5、l Latin andGreek, this method used classical literature chosen for its intellectual content asmaterials; it was typically assumed that most students would never actually use thetarget language but would profit from the mental exercise. Students were provideddetailed explanations of grammar in their
6、native languages, paradigms to memorize,and bilingual vocabulary lists to learn; these prepared them for the regular task oftranslating long passages of the classics. Although the names of the GrammarTranslation materials typically included the adjective “practical“ (e.g., The PracticalGuide of the
7、German Language by T. H. Weisse), the word was not used to meanuseful as we would use it today. Rather, it referred to the importance of practice(Howatt, 1984): Lessons typically consisted of a reading selection, two or three longcolumns of new vocabulary items with native-language equivalents, and
8、a test(Rivers, 1981. Language skill was judged according to ones ability to analyze thesyntactic structure, primarily to conjugate verbs.It follows, then, that students using the Grammar Translation Method studiedliterary language samples that used primarily archaic structures and obsoletevocabulary
9、. Students were exposed to a wide literary vocabulary (Rivers, 1981 thatwas selected according to its ability to illustrate grammatical rules, and directvocabulary instruction was included only when a word illustrated a grammatical rule(Kelly, 1969. When vocabulary difficulties were addressed at all
10、, their explanationsdepended largely on etymology. Latin and Greek roots or “primitives“ wereconsidered “the most accurate court of appeal on word meanings“; the ability to useetymology was respected as “one way of discovering truth“ (Kelly, 1969, p. 30. Theteaching of vocabulary was based on defini
11、tion and etymology throughout thenineteenth century, at least in part because of the prevalent belief that the connectionbetween etymon and derivative should be protectively preserved to avoiddegeneration of the language. Bilingual word lists (vocabularies, used asinstructional aids rather than as r
12、eference, were organized according to semantic fieldsand had been a normal part of grammars and readers since the mid-seventeenthcentury. During the period of Grammar Translation methodology, bilingualdictionaries became common as reference tools (Kelly, 1969. As more wasunderstood about language fa
13、milies and the natural process of language change in thetwentieth century, scholars began to emphasize the dangers of cognates, but thischange in perspective was gradual.The Grammar Translation Method was used well into the twentieth century asthe primary method for foreign language instruction in E
14、urope and the United States,but it had received challenges and criticism for many years. In the mid-1800s, theprimary objection to the method was the neglect of realistic, oral language. Thisobjection had implications for the role of vocabulary in language instruction. Forexample, the Frenchman Fran
15、ois Gouin emphasized the acquisition of specific terms,especially of action words.that could be physically performed as they were used.Within thesesituations, students would act out very detailed sequences of appropriateactions in relation to objects, stating aloud exactly what they were doing withw
16、hat. (Rivers, 1983, p. 116)He introduced words in semantic fields in the interest of teaching a verbs collocationsalong with the verb, always emphasizing that “general terms are.terms of luxury,which the language can upon necessity do without“ (Gouin, 1892, in Rivers, 1983, p.116).Another challenge
17、came from Thomas Prendergast, who objected to archaicvocabulary lists; in his 1864 manual, The Mastery of Languages, or, the Art ofSpeaking Foreign Tongues Idiomatically, he listed the most common English words,based entirely on his intuitive judgment. This effort to rank vocabulary according tofreq
18、uency was seen as one of many fleeting and rebellious methods that failed toperform what it promised and consequently “didnt significantly influence languageteaching“ (Sweet, 1899/1964, p. 2). Nevertheless, Prendergasts judgments weredeemed surprisingly accurate when compared to the lists compiled s
19、ystematically byThorndike and Lorge in 1944: of a total of 214 words, 82% of Prendergasts wordswere among the first 500 most frequent words on the list of Thorndike-Lorge(Howatt, 1984). Prendergasts list was an important innovation because it came at atime when simplicity and everyday language were
20、scorned and before it was normalto think in terms of common words.The Reform MovementAs already seen, although Grammar Translation dominated language teaching as lateas the 1920s, it had been challenged on many fronts. In the 1880s its challengers hadenough consensus and the intellectual leadership
21、they needed from linguists such asHenry Sweet in England to establish the Reform Movement. Sweet insisted thatprevious reactions against Grammar Translation had failed because they were “basedon an insufficient knowledge of the science of language and because they were one-sided“ (Sweet, 1899/1964,
22、p. 3). The Reformers emphasized the primacy of spokenlanguage and phonetic training. Fluency took on a new meaning: the ability toaccurately pronounce a connected passage and to maintain associations between astream of speech and the referents in the outside world. The curriculum developed bySweet i
23、s considered representative of the time (Howatt, 1984). His system began withthe Mechanical Stage, where students studied phonetics and transcription, continuedto the Grammatical Stage, where they studied grammar and very basic vocabulary,and then to the Idiomatic Stage, where they pursued vocabular
24、y in greater depth.Stages four and five (Literary and Archaic) consisted of the study of philology andwere reserved for university-level work. Sweets lessons were based on carefullycontrolled spoken language in which lists of separated words and isolated sentenceswere avoided; only after thorough st
25、udy of the complete text should grammar pointsor vocabulary items be isolated for instructional purposes.Although language is made up of words, we do not speak in words, but insentences. From a practical, as well as a scientific, point of view, the sentenceis the unit of language, not the word. From
26、 a purely phonetic point of viewwords do not exist. (Sweet, 1899/1964, p. 97)Perhaps the Reformers most significant departure from the past in the area ofvocabulary instruction was that words came to be associated with reality rather thanwith other words and syntactic patterns. To this end, vocabula
27、ry was selectedaccording to its simplicity and usefulness. Sweet began to discuss the possibility ofdeveloping vocabulary lists based on statistical measures, though they were developedintuitively by consensus until the 1920s (Kelly, 1969). Sweet believed that practicalwords such as household items
28、and articles of clothing were not only important toknow, but also appropriately “dull and commonplace“; he warned that students mightbe distracted from learning by interesting materials (Howatt, 1984, p. 187).The Direct MethodThe Direct Method, the best known of several “natural“ methods introduced
29、towardthe end of the nineteenth century, benefited from the debate that ensued during theReform Movement, though it wasnt considered grounded in linguistic theory bySweet and other intellectual leaders (Richards Richards and none of these modern textbooks in common use inEnglish schools have attempt
30、ed to solve the problem. (West, 1930, p. 514)He stated that foreign language learners did not have even a basic thousand-wordvocabulary after three years of study, for three reasons: (1) their time was spent onactivities that were not helping them speak the language; (2) they were learning wordsthat
31、 were not useful to them; and (3) they were not “fully mastering“ the words theywere learning (West, 1930, p. 511). Wests recommendation was to use word-frequency lists as the basis for the selection and order of vocabulary in studentmaterials. In 1930 he recommended the use of Thorndikes word-frequ
32、ency list; in1953 West published A General Service List of English Words. Even though this list isold (the headwords have not changed since 1936), it is still considered the mostwidely used of high-frequency word lists. In fact, publishers and examining boardsstill quote Wests 1953 list despite the
33、existence of more updated lists compiled withthe help of computer technology (Meara, 1980).At the same time, British linguists H. E. Palmer and A. S. Hornby, consideredleaders of the Situational Language Teaching movement, were influential both in theUnited States and in Great Britain; their initial
34、 aim was to develop a more scientificfoundation for the oral methods made popular by direct methodologists. Theybelieved language should be taught by practicing basic structures in meaningfulsituation-based activities; speech was the basis and structure that made speechpossible. Intheir reaction to
35、the ungraded speech imposed upon learners in the DirectMethod, Palmer and Hornby stressed selection, gradation, and presentation oflanguage structures (Richards Ogden, 1930; Palmer,1916, 1921, 1924). For the first time, vocabulary was considered one of the mostimportant aspects of second language le
36、arning and a priority was placed ondeveloping a scientific and rational basis for selecting the vocabulary content oflanguage courses. The combined research of Palmer and Michael West led to thedevelopment of principles on vocabulary control; their attempts to introduce ascientific basis for vocabul
37、ary selection were the first efforts to establish principles ofsyllabus design in language teaching (Richards Fries argued that the only words that convey exactly the same meaningfrom one language to another are highly technical words. Second, it is assumed that aword is a single meaning unit; in fa
38、ct, Fries pointed out that English words usuallyhave from fifteen to twenty meanings. The third false assumption is that each wordhas a “basic“ or “real“ meaning and that all other meanings are either figurative orillegitimate. Fries spent a considerable amount of time in this introductory documenta
39、rguing against these false assumptions and illustrating the fact that words arelinguistic forms: “symbols that derive their whole content and their limitations ofmeaning from the situations in which they are used“ (Fries, 1945, p. 43).It was thus suggested during this period that learning too much v
40、ocabularyearly in the language learning process gives students a false sense of security. WilgaRivers reflects this view in Teaching Foreign Language Skills, first published in 1968:Excessive vocabulary learning early in the course gives students theimpression that the most important thing about lea
41、rning a language isaccumulating new; words as equivalents for concepts which they can alreadyexpress in their native languages. They often fail to realize that meaning isexpressed in groups of words and in combinations of language segments, andthat the meaning of an individual word is usually diffic
42、ult to determine when itis separated from a context of other words and phrases. Traditional vocabularylists rarely provide contexts of this type. Students are thus unprepared to usethe words they have learned as isolated units in any approximation to authenticcommunication. (Rivers, 1968/1981, p. 25
43、4)She went on to recommend practice with morphological variations and syntacticstructures using well-known vocabulary so that students would not be distracted fromconcentration on the target structures. She recommended that new vocabulary beintroduced first in high-interest oral activities and that
44、words be reused extensively inorder to aid long-term retention. As will be seen shortly, Rivers altered this view inlater publications.Freeman Twaddell, a colleague of Fries, echoed Friess concern that languagelearners often overvalue word knowledge and equate it with knowledge of thelanguage; he su
45、ggested that teachers and theoreticians have reacted against learnersexaggeration of the role of vocabulary by downgrading it and have consequentlyoveremphasized the role of grammar (1980). The ramifications of this view have beenseen in curriculum and teaching materials that treat lexical items as
46、the means bywhich to illustrate grammatical topics rather than as items with communicative valuein themselves. Twaddell notes that the result is that, unlike L1 children who havemore words than they can express in sentences, adult learners have “an infantilevocabulary and an adult mentality“ (Twadde
47、ll, 1980, p. 442). His recommendation foraddressing this problem is not to abandon the primacy of grammatical structures in theprocess of teaching a language, but rather to teach skills of compensation: “guessingword meanings and tolerating vagueness.“Communicative language teachingA major transitio
48、n in linguistic theory was triggered by the publication of NoamChomskys Syntactic Structures in 1957. This work introduced the assumption thatlanguage is represented in the speakers mental grammar by an abstract set of rulesthat is most clearly reflected in a speakers unconscious intuitions about la
49、nguage, andleast reflected in his or her conscious beliefs and statements about the use of language(Chomsky, 1965). Chomsky maintained that language existed in the individual quiteapart from communicating needs, and labeled the internalized (unconscious) mentalgrammar of a language competence, and the actual use of it performance. At the sametime, though, he paid little attention to the nature of language use in realcommunication. His work was a revolutionary reminder of the creativity of languageand a challenge to the behaviorist view of language as a set
