The present study is a continuation of the work presented in the 2001 article by Greidanus and Nienhuis. In the current study, we also examine the quality of word knowledge among advanced learners of French as a second language (L2) by means of a word associates test. We studied the development of word knowledge among six groups of university-level participants, who were (a) native speakers of French and (b) learners of French as a foreign language with two different first languages (L1s), Dutch and English. The format of the test differed from that used in the 2001 Greidanus and Nienhuis study as follows: (a) the tested words were less frequently used French words; (b) the participants were native speakers of French in addition to two categories of advanced learners of French; (c) the number of associate words (fixed or not) was an independent variable. The findings showed that both native and non-native speakers of French progressed in deep-word knowledge when the results of third- and fourth-year students were compared with those of first-year students. Although the test contained a considerable number of French-English cognates, the L1 English learners did not perform better than the Dutch learners. The words tested were not noticeably more difficult when chosen from the 10,000-word level rather than from the 5,000-word level.

The present study is a continuation of the work presented in the 2001 article by Greidanus and Nienhuis. In the current study, we also examine the quality of word knowledge among advanced learners of French as a second language (L2) by means of a word associates test. We studied the development of word knowledge among 6 groups of university-level participants, who were (a) native speakers of French and (b) learners of French as a foreign language with 2 different first languages (L1s), Dutch and English. The format of the test differed from that used in the 2001 Greidanus and Nienhuis study as follows: (a) The tested words were less frequently used French words; (b) the participants were native speakers of French in addition to two categories of advanced learners of French; (c) the number of associate words (fixed or not) was an independent variable. The findings showed that both native and nonnative speakers of French progressed in deep-word knowledge when the results of third-and fourth-year students were compared with those of first-year students. Although the test contained a considerable number of French-English cognates, the L1 English learners did not perform better than the Dutch learners. The words tested were not noticeably more difficult when chosen from the 10,000 word level rather than from the 5,000 word level.IN RECENT YEARS, DEPTH OF LEXICAL knowledge has become a matter of growing interest. By depth of lexical knowledge we mean all the knowledge that a speaker can have about a given word. Nation (1990) distinguished four dimensions of lexical knowledge: form (oral, written), position (grammatical, collocations), function (frequency, appropriateness), and meaning (concept and associations). There are no tests that examine all these aspects of lexical knowledge concurrently. Tests aiming to measure the vocabulary knowledge of advanced learners concentrate on grammatical and semantic aspects.

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