Abstract
Lexical availability research points to striking similarities in learners of different ages. It is claimed that similarities are due to the universal organization of L2 mental lexicon. In this chapter we adopt a corpus methodology to compare the lexical availability output of sixth grade primary school children and first year university students, English language learners. The aim was to ascertain whether if, holding language level constant, children and adults would retrieve the same number of word responses as well as similar or different types of words in response to the prompts ‘Town’ and ‘Countryside’. The findings suggest the existence of similarities regarding the number of words retrieved by each prompt but also more differences than similarities regarding the specific words activated by the cue words. These results reveal the existence of exclusive vocabularies in the available lexicons of young and adult English as Foreign Language (EFL) Learners of the same language level.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsReferences
Aitchison, J., and A. Koppel. 1990. The lexicon in 11–14 year olds. Overview of LSE-Longman project on children’s vocabulary. Manuscript, Language Studies Centre, London School of Economics.
Bailey, V.J. 1971. A study of lexical availability among monolingual-bilingual speakers of Spanish and English. Unpublished thesis, Rice University.
Boers, F., J. Denconick, and S. Lindstromberg. 2010. Choosing motivated chunks for teaching. In Fostering language teaching efficiency through cognitive linguistics, ed. Sabine De Knop, Frank Boers, and Antoon De Rycker, 239–257. Berlin/New York: De Gruyter.
Carcedo, González A. 1997–1998. Desarrollo de la competencia léxica en el español LE. Pragmalingüística 5–6: 75–94.
Carcedo Gonzále, A. (2000) Disponibilidad léxica en español como lengua extranjera: el caso Filandés: estudio del nivel preuniversitario y cotejo con tres fases de adquisición. Turku: Universidad de Turku.
Cenoz, J. 2002. Age differences in foreign language learning. ITL Review of Applied Linguistics 135–136: 125–142.
Cenoz, J. 2003. The influence of age on the acquisition of English: General proficiency, attitudes and code mixing. In Age and the acquisition of English as a foreign language, ed. Maria Pilar García Mayo and Maria Luisa García Lecumberri, 77–93. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Dimitrijević, N. 1969. Lexical availability. Heidelberg: Julius Groos Verlag.
Echeverría, M.S. 1991. Crecimiento de la disponibilidad léxica en estudiantes chilenos de nivel básico y medio. In La enseñanza del español como lengua materna, ed. Humberto López Morales, 61–78. Río Piedras: Universidad de Puerto Rico.
Eckert, P. 1988. Adolescent social structure and the spread of linguistic change. Language in Society 17: 183–207.
Eckert, P. 1998. Age as a sociolinguistic variable. In The handbook of sociolinguistics, ed. Florian Coulmas, 151–168. London: Blackwell.
Ellis, Nick C., and A. Beaton. 1993. Psycholinguistic determinants of foreign language vocabulary learning. Language Learning 43(4): 559–617.
García Mayo, M.P., and M.L. García Lecumberri (eds.). 2003. Age and the acquisition of English as a foreign language. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Germany, P., and N. Cartes. 2000. Léxico disponible en inglés como segunda lengua en instrucción personalizada. Estudios Pedagógicos 26: 39–50.
Hernández Muñoz, N. 2010. Social aspects of oral and lexical written production in Spanish. SKY Journal of Linguistics 23: 101–123.
Jiménez Catalán, R.M., and R. Mancebo Francisco. 2008. Vocabulary input in ELT textbooks. RESLA 21: 147–166.
Jiménez Catalán, R.M., and J. Ojeda Alba. 2009a. Disponibilidad léxica en inglés como lengua extranjera en dos tipos de instrucción. Lenguaje y Textos 30: 166–176.
Jiménez Catalán, R.M., and J. Ojeda Alba. 2009b. Girls’ and boys’ lexical availability in EFL. ITL International Journal of Applied Linguistics 158: 57–76.
Kerswill, P. 1996. Children, adolescents, and language change. Language Variation and Change 8: 177–202.
Lightbown, P.M. 2008. Easy as Pie? Children learning languages. COPAL Concordia Working Papers in Applied Linguistics 1: 5–29.
López Morales, H. 1992. En torno al aprendizaje del léxico. Bases psicolingüísticas de la planificación curricular. RLA: Revista de lingüística teórica y aplicada 30: 39–50.
MacIntyre, P.D., S.C. Baker, R. Clément, and L.A. Donovan. 2002. Sex and age effects on willingness to communicate, anxiety, perceived competence, and L2 motivation among junior High School French immersion students. Language Learning 52(3): 537–564.
Mervis, Carolyn B. 1987. Child-basic object categories and early lexical development. In Concepts and conceptual development, ed. Ulrich Neisser, 201–234. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Muñoz, C. 2000. Bilingualism and trilingualism in school students in Catalonia. In English in Europe. The acquisition of a third language, ed. Jasone Cenoz and Ulrike Jessner, 157–178. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Muñoz, C. 2001. Factores escolares e individuales en el aprendizaje formal de un idioma extranjero. In Estudios de Lingüística. Anexo 1. Tendencias y Líneas de Investigación en Adquisición de Segundas Lenguas, ed. Susana Pastor Cesteros, and Ventura Salazar García. Departamento de Filología Española, Lingüística General y Teoría de la Literatura, Universidad de Alicante.
Muñoz, C. (ed.). 2006. Age and the rate of foreign language learning. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Muñoz, C. 2008. Symmetries and asymmetries of age effects in naturalistic and instructed L2 learning. Applied Linguistics 29(4): 578–596.
Rickford, J.R. 1996. Regional and social variation. In Sociolinguistics and language teaching, ed. Sandra Lee McKay and Nancy H. Hornberger, 151–194. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press.
Samper Hernández, M. 2002. Disponibilidad léxica en alumnos de español como lengua extranjera. Málaga: ASELE.
Schmitt, N., D. Schmitt, and C. Clapham. 2001. Developing and exploring the behaviour of two new versions of the Vocabulary Levels Test. Language Testing 18(1): 55–89.
Singleton, D. 2003. Critical period or general age factors. In Age and the acquisition of English as a foreign language, ed. Maria Pilar García Mayo and M. Luisa García Lecumberri, 3–22. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Wardhaugh, R. 1996. An introduction to sociolinguistics. Oxford: Blackwell.
Wray, A. 2002. Formulaic language and the lexicon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Yamada, J., S. Takatsuka, N. Kotake, and J. Kurusu. 1980. On the optimum age for teaching foreign vocabulary to children. IRAL 18(3): 245–247.
Acknowledgments
We would like to acknowledge the financial support of Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación through grant nº FFI2010-19334.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Jiménez Catalán, R.M., del Pilar Agustín Llach, M., Fontecha, A.F., Alonso, A.C. (2014). The Effect of Age on EFL Learners’ Lexical Availability: Word Responses to the Cue Words ‘Town’ and ‘Countryside’. In: Jiménez Catalán, R. (eds) Lexical Availability in English and Spanish as a Second Language. Educational Linguistics, vol 17. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7158-1_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7158-1_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-007-7157-4
Online ISBN: 978-94-007-7158-1
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawEducation (R0)