Nearly a century ago, Palmer (Reference Palmer1917) called for optimal sequencing in introducing language in classrooms. For decades, the field has also witnessed a heightened awareness of the role of vocabulary in second and multilingual communication, learning, teaching, and testing. In this volume, Milton meticulously connects research on corpus linguistics, SLA, and testing and advocates for establishing reliable units of measurement of vocabulary size as a cornerstone to furthering understanding of second-language (L2) vocabulary development.
The first several chapters familiarize readers with basic concepts needed for constructing word lists and generating crosslinguistic comparisons (e.g., word family, lemmatization, validity, reliability, word frequency). Chapter 2 describes lexical frequency profiling methodologies and presents results of research on English as a foreign language and other commonly taught languages. Through his own and others’ research, Milton argues for using frequency profiles over other indexes (e.g., lexical difficulty) to predict learnability. Chapter 3 expands on this and systematically connects frequency, text coverage, and comprehension by considering the application of Zipf’s law across linguistic contexts. This chapter also illustrates the relationships between text coverage and understanding that is related to written and spoken corpora (e.g., the British National Corpus and the Cambridge and Nottingham Corpus of Discourse in English).
The following two chapters focus on vocabulary breadth and are connected with Nation’s (Reference Nation2001) framework of word knowledge. Chapters 4 and 5 describe written (e.g., yes-or-no checklist tests; the Swansea Vocabulary Levels Test, or X-Lex; translation recognition and recall; the Levels Test) and aural (Aural-Lex) measurements of passive recognition of linguistic features of words. These chapters illustrate the variability in receptive breadth knowledge with reports from cross-sectional research on English and more commonly taught languages. Here, Milton underscores the importance of establishing normative data on vocabulary growth patterns across the curriculum to make comparisons, determine needs, and promote curricular innovation in vocabulary.
Chapter 6 presents challenges with regard to measurement of productive knowledge and growth in large-scale testing and the establishment of norms, relative to those for measuring receptive knowledge. Results of research with PLex and Lex30 connect lexical sophistication in production data with fluency, frequency, and proficiency level. The author also connects this with seminal research on cognition and language learning (e.g., Anderson, Reference Anderson1983; Segalowitz, Reference Segalowitz, Doughty and Long2003) to address the contributions of practice and language processing experience to knowledge and skill development. Here, the notion of individual differences resurfaces as a factor to be considered in modeling productive vocabulary knowledge and growth.
There is a brief chapter (chapter 7) on vocabulary depth, describing self-assessment formats (the Vocabulary Knowledge Scale) and early tests of word associations (Word Associates Test). Milton proposes improvements on such measures with the V_Links test to capture knowledge networks. He presents support for the adoption of instruments to measure idiom and collocational knowledge (e.g., Idioms Test, Collex, and Collmatch) given the possibility of crosslinguistic differences in collocation and connotation. Still, Milton challenges the idea of relying on measures of depth, given a lack of evidence for its construct validity and, thus, utility in large-scale testing and predicting growth.
Chapters 8 and 9 focus on instruction and illustrate the relationships among vocabulary size, placement exam performance, L2 subskills, and curricular levels across more commonly taught languages within the Common European Framework. The trends and data establish support for using vocabulary size estimates, largely via applications of Meara and Milton’s (Reference Meara and Milton2003) X-Lex and Nation’s (Reference Nation2001) Vocabulary Levels Test. The next chapter emphasizes classroom reading, connecting frequency of vocabulary input and uptake with printed materials. There is some description of teacher talk, vocabulary frequency, and uptake, however limited. This challenges researchers to conduct future studies in this specific area. Chapter 10 broadly addresses vocabulary presentation, use, and learning outside of the classroom. It presents new evidence and systematic methodologies for gauging the effects of extensive reading (e.g., comic books), singing, watching DVDs, notecards, study-abroad, and other activities.
Throughout this cutting-edge volume, Milton highlights pedagogical, methodological, and theoretical implications while also cautiously reminding readers of intervening factors in establishing connections between vocabulary frequency with vocabulary knowledge. This sets the stage for future systematic research addressing the multicomponentiality and longitudinal nature of vocabulary growth. Some typological errors should be corrected in future editions of the book, and the inclusion of a glossary and more research on child L2 and multilingual knowledge and testing should also be considered. In short, given that accumulating vocabulary breadth is seen as a cornerstone to developing vocabulary depth, this volume has very broad appeal to researchers, policy makers, and students in fields concerned with multilingual literacy development.
