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A Technique for Interlingual Lexico‐Semantic Comparison: The Lexigram *
Author(s) -
Ramsey Robert M.
Publication year - 1981
Publication title -
tesol quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.737
H-Index - 91
eISSN - 1545-7249
pISSN - 0039-8322
DOI - 10.2307/3586369
Subject(s) - lexico , linguistics , psychology , natural language processing , computer science , artificial intelligence , lexicon , philosophy
There is a definite need for research into vocabulary structure in the field of second language learning. The viewpoint that vocabulary has not been given sufficient attention has been the subject of recent professional papers (Twaddell 1973, Richards 1976, Judd 1978, Celce‐Murcia and Rosensweig 1979, McKay 1980). This article addresses the issue of vocabulary in the EFL/ESL curriculum and introduces a technique for interlingual lexicosemantic comparison: the lexigram. This technique is based on a study of restricted word association data obtained from native speakers of English in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and from native speakers of Castilian and Catalan in the bilingual city of Barcelona, Spain. English (L2) data from non‐native speakers in that city are also compared with data from native speakers. Such comparisons should provide the L2 teacher with valuable insights into vocabulary structures.