1. A study of the most frequent word families in the British National Corpus

Nation, Paul

doi:10.1075/lllt.10.03nat

Cited by 192 publications

(173 citation statements)

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“…Research indicates that for learners to be able to guess words in context and gain adequate comprehension of written text it is necessary to know at least 95% of the words (Laufer, 1989). Moreover, comprehension and incidental vocabulary learning through reading are likely to increase if the percentage of known words in a text is 98% (Nation, 2001). This result significantly supports the finding that there may be very little incidental vocabulary learning from doing ME for primary school children.…”

Section: Features Of the Linguistic Textsupporting

confidence: 79%

A Multimodal Analysis of Mathematical Discourse in English for Young Learners

Nhat¹

2017

JFS

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Abstract:Of multiple discourses where the Vietnamese young learners are increasingly engaged to develop their English proficiency, English mathematical discourse (MD) has proved to be more and more popular. This paper explores the materials in this realm from multisemiotic perspective. In particular, it deals with two questions: (1) to what extent each of the three semiotic resources -language, visual images and mathematical symbolism -is represented in the materials of learning mathematics in English (ME) developed for young learners (YL) and (2) how many words the YLs need to know to comprehend the language component of these materials. Data for illustrations and discussions are withdrawn from the printed resources currently accessible in the Vietnamese context. The results offer insights into the functions of other resources in constructing meanings apart from the well-established role of language as well as the vocabulary load of these materials. The paper concludes with a discussion of pedagogical significance of this study for material designers, teachers and learners and implications for further research.

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Section: Features Of the Linguistic Textsupporting

confidence: 79%

A Multimodal Analysis of Mathematical Discourse in English for Young Learners

Nhat¹

2017

JFS

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“…Only the spoken words from the programs were analysed. Contractions, connected speech, and hyphenated words were changed to conform with the spellings used in Nation's (2004) British National Corpus (BNC) word lists.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…RANGE is a computer program which lists the words that occur in a text according to their frequency. Nation's (2004) 14 lists 1 of 1,000 word families were used with the RANGE software to show the 1,000 word level (1,000-14,000) at which the words in the programs occurred. The lists were based on the frequency and range of occurrence of words in the BNC.…”

Section: Software and Word Listsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Selecting Television Programs for Language Learning: Investigating Television Programs from the Same Genre

Webb

2011

ijes

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The scripts of 288 television episodes were analysed to determine the extent to which vocabulary reoccurs in television programs from the same subgenres and unrelated television programs from different genres. Episodes from two programs from each of the following three subgenres of the American drama genre: medical, spy/action, and criminal forensic investigation were compared with different sets of random episodes. The results showed that although there were an equivalent number of running words in each set of episodes, the episodes from programs within the same subgenre contained fewer word families than random programs. The findings also showed that low frequency word families (4000-14,000 levels) reoccur more often in programs within the same subgenre. Together the results indicate that watching programs within the same subgenre may be an effective approach to language learning with television because it reduces the lexical demands of viewing and increases the potential for vocabulary learning. KEYWORDS:Comprehension, corpus linguistics, genre, incidental vocabulary learning, television, vocabulary coverage, word frequency. RESUMENLos guiones de 288 episodios televisivos se analizaron para determinar el alcance de la recursividad del vocabulario en programas de televisión del mismo subgénero y en programas no relacionados de géneros diferentes. Se compararon episodios de tres subgéneros del drama americano: médico, de espías/acción y de investigación forense, con varios grupos de episodios elegidos al azar. Los resultados muestran que, aunque el número de palabras en cada grupo de episodios era equivalente, los episodios del mismo subgénero contienen menos familias de palabras que aquellos elegidos al azar. Los hallazgos mostraron que las familias de baja frecuencia (niveles de 4.000-14.000) se repiten con más frecuencia en los programas del mismo subgénero. En conjunto, los resultados indican que el visionado de programas del mismo subgénero puede ser un método efectivo para aprender el lenguaje por medio de la televisión porque reduce la demanda léxica de la proyección y aumenta el potencial de aprendizaje de vocabulario.

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“…They are also very common in general English. 84% (157) of them are among the most frequent 1,000 words of English according to word lists based on the British National Corpus (Nation, 2004),and only 5 words are used less frequently than the most frequent 3,000 words (i.e. billion, prior, hence, moreover, lest).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As such, although these low-range words are equally uncommon in the ÜDS corpus occurring only in a few of the past tests,those which are frequent in English have a higher likelihood of occurrence in future tests. Grading with BNC was performed using the BNC word frequency lists generated by Paul Nation (2004) and in-built in the Range program used here to compile the lists. There are 14 such lists which are ordered in frequency groups of 1000 words each.…”

Section: Word Listsmentioning

confidence: 99%