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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Annabelle David
This article reports on productive vocabulary development by instructed British learners of French over a five year period (from age 13 to 18). Lexical diversity development was investigated through a semi-guided oral picture-based task. Results show that the students' lexical diversity (as measured by D) did significantly improve throughout the five years showing little sign of slower periods. Overall more noun types were observed than verb types in the composition of the lexicon throughout the study but with a consistent decrease in its proportion after year 10. Further results using the Limiting Relative Diversity measure indicate that learners vary their use of nouns to a much larger extent than verbs. The discussion focuses on the noun-bias hypothesis and the use of different elicitation tasks.
Author(s): David A
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Journal of French Language Studies
Year: 2008
Volume: 18
Issue: 3
Pages: 315-331
Date deposited: 01/07/2010
ISSN (print): 0959-2695
ISSN (electronic): 1474-0079
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0959269508003475
DOI: 10.1017/S0959269508003475
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