Vocabulary and corpora
Vocabulary research and language corpora have long been key features in LALS.
Vocabulary
Vocabulary has received a great deal of attention in the literature on language learning in recent years and has been an area of strength in the School since the 1960s.
Active and recent research projects in these areas
- The creation of the Vocabulary Levels Test — a diagnostic test designed to measure the vocabulary learners know at different levels of frequency
- The creation of the Vocabulary Size Test - a diagnostic test designed to measure the size of second and foreign learners of English and first language speakers also
- The creation of word lists such as the Academic Word List and the Academic Spoken Word List — lists of words which are most useful for learners to know when studying at university; as well as word lists for trades education in plumbing, carpentry, automotive technology and fabrication
- Determining the vocabulary size necessary to understand a novel, newspaper, conversation, academic texts or movie.
- Understanding the vocabulary in areas such as English for Specific Purposes and English for Academic Purposes
- The acquisition and use of formulaic language in first and second language users
- Incidental vocabulary learning.
Researchers able to supervise in this area
Corpus linguistics
The School is the home of the Wellington Corpora of Spoken and Written New Zealand English and the New Zealand component of the International Corpus of English, managed by Bernadette Vine.
A corpus is a principled collection of machine-readable authentic spoken or written texts. Corpus studies attempt to identify patterns of text organization and language use, involving the lexicon, grammar and discourse, in a relevant corpus or corpora. These patterns are relevant to a variety of research questions in both linguistics and applied linguistics. In addition, qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods research is carried out on corpora consisting of learner and/or professional texts.