Gardner, D. (2007). Validating the construct of word in applied corpus-based vocabulary research: A critical survey. Applied Linguistics, 28(2), 241–265.

a) Morphological relationships between words ‘lemma’ – the root form searched for in a corpus ‘lexeme’ – a root form, including all its grammatical variants. make/makes/making/made break/breaks/breaking/broke/broken.

Problems 1. Some variants of a lexeme/lemma may be very different from the base form, difficult to identify (be, broken, best). 2. Some words may seem identical, but be different grammatical class - can’t identify unless the corpus is grammatically tagged e.g. make/make; face/face; travel/travel; 3. Some words may seem identical, same grammatical class, but in fact have different meanings can’t identify unless the corpus is also semantically tagged eg. make out, make up etc.

Word families Word families: lexeme plus transparent derivatives: nation – national ‘Affixed forms outnumber basic forms four to one’

Inflectional affixes (grammatical, remains the same lexeme) Derivative affixes (different lexeme); prefixes don’t change part of speech, suffixes often do e.g. see/foresee, vs. determine/determination

Seven-level list: getting less and less ‘transparent’ 1.Each form is a different word (boy/boys) not very practical or useful 2. Word with inflectional suffixes (lemma/lexeme) useful 3. Word with most frequent and regular suffixes/prefixes eg four+th, count+able, prince+ess. Probably useful at more advanced level. Counted as the same word or a different one?

4. Word with frequent, regularly spelt affixes(the basic spelling of the word predictable according to regular rules) - e.g. nation- national 5. Word with less frequent, but regular suffixes. E.g Child- childhood 6. Frequent but irregular (i.e. make a sometimes unpredictable change to the word they are added to) e.g. comprehend / comprehensible 7. Classical suffixes e.g. abduct Not very useful: most words with prefixes and suffixes are actually learnt as single words, and if you take off the affix they don’t exist as single words in English: subject, visible, happy, decide, Or no logical connection with ‘root’ even if it exists: comfortable, disappointed.

Age differences The older the learner, the more able to understand the relationships between word families and to distinguis between morphemes.

Problems for learners Some affixes mean the same such as un/in/non. Prefixes tend not to change word class, whereas suffixes often do (general/generalize, wonder/wonderful) Difficulty of meaning of some of the suffixes eg. ish, ness Distinction between stems and affixes (lower-level learners tend to focus on meaning of stem) assumption that inflected forms acquired later: not true. (wonderful/wonder) also some inflected forms just don’t have separate corresponding forms meaning-wise, (disappointed) or don’t have any at all (subject) learners may not be able to distinguish morphemes

For practical teaching purposes: Word as a ‘word family’ includes: All the forms of a base lexeme, i.e. all the added grammatical (‘inflectional’) suffixes Plus: only the most obviously connected words e.g. usual/usually, But not less obviously connected ones, e.g. comfort/comfortable

For linguistic research purposes What are they counting in frequency lists? Mostly: lemmas, not including affixed forms But when the researchers (e.g. Schmitt) talk about ‘words’ and equate them with ‘word families’, they may be including affixed forms. Which ones? Not clear. A problem. What is ‘8000 words’?

b) homonymy and polysemy Homonymy: no connection (because different etymology, just happen to have developed into similar form) e..g. bank, bear; past tense of bear (bore) Polysemy: different metaphorical developments, e.g. break, head, branch, book

So… If you look up the frequency of a word like bank…in a corpus: how frequent is each meaning? If you look up the frequency of a word like head in a corpus: it won’t tell you which meaning is most common … unless each item is semantically tagged.

Other complications Most common words have most varied meanings. So a ‘frequent’ word probably doesn’t represent a frequent particular meaning of that word. (But near enough, surely? And metaphorical extensions are likely to be similar in L1) Need for semantic tagging But: enormous task; and not always very easy

c) the impact of multi-word items compounds crystal ball, Prime Minister, phrasal verbs give up, break off, write down, idioms kick the bucket, spill the beans, rock the boat, fixed phrases of course, at least, in fact, good morning, prefabs the thing is, that reminds me

Erman and Warren estimate more than 50% of text composed of multiword items I think an exaggeration But: A frequency test of single words won’t reveal the multiword items e.g. matter Concordancing may show it. Are we going to search for ‘strings’? If so, what ‘strings’?

Conclusion Younger / elementary learners will have a more limited concept of ‘word’; older more advanced can cope with wider range of word families. Multiple meanings of single words, and single meanings of multiword items may be lost in corpus surveys Need for ‘tagging’ (but feasibility?) Fact that most common words have greatest variation, technical words least

‘Researchers and practitioners should carefully consider these and other form–meaning issues when evaluating corpus- generated findings that produce instructional word lists, estimate learners’ vocabulary sizes, determine how many words learners need to know to adequately function in the language, access the lexical characteristics, distributions, or densities of various written or spoken texts, or hypothesize about the processes involved in actual vocabulary acquisition.’

Frequency lists are still valid: but we need to take into account, be aware of these reservations and cautious about conclusions. Teach new meanings of old words; Teach chunks Teach new associated words as new words.