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2 - Knowing a word

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 June 2022

I. S. P. Nation
Affiliation:
Victoria University of Wellington
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Summary

Words are not isolated units of the language but fit into many related systems. Because of this, there are many things to know about any particular word and there are many degrees of knowing. The aims of this chapter are to examine what could be known about a word, to evaluate the relative importance of the various kinds of knowledge, to see how they are related to each other, and to broadly suggest how learners might gain this knowledge. The chapter also looks at the learning burden of words, that is, what needs to be learned for each word and what is predictable from previous knowledge. The chapter is based on the division of what it means to know a word into nine aspects of knowledge – spoken form, written form, word parts, form–meaning connection, concepts, associations, grammatical functions, collocations, and constraints on use. The chapter concludes with the description of a model of vocabulary learning.

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Chapter
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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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  • Knowing a word
  • I. S. P. Nation, Victoria University of Wellington
  • Book: Learning Vocabulary in Another Language
  • Online publication: 02 June 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009093873.003
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To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Knowing a word
  • I. S. P. Nation, Victoria University of Wellington
  • Book: Learning Vocabulary in Another Language
  • Online publication: 02 June 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009093873.003
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Knowing a word
  • I. S. P. Nation, Victoria University of Wellington
  • Book: Learning Vocabulary in Another Language
  • Online publication: 02 June 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009093873.003
Available formats
×