Title: Active and Productive Vocabulary, Passive and Receptive Vocabulary: The Same or Different?
Abstract: There are two pairs of underlying terms,one of which is receptive vocabulary and productive vocabulary,the other is passive vocabulary and active vocabulary,which are often taken as synonyms.Nevertheless,a great amount of literature reveals that there is much difference between them.This paper makes a contrastive analysis on the differences between these two terms as to their theoretical definitions and their actual use in lexical knowledge testing.In light of a great amount of relevant literature,the paper has pointed out that receptive vocabulary and productive vocabulary has many limitations in explaining the experimental results as to the SLA,while passive vocabulary and active vocabulary gain an advantage over them in marking the degree of “activeness” and “passiveness” in lexical acquisition process.The article concludes that active vocabulary and passive vocabulary can not be taken as the synonyms for productive vocabulary and receptive vocabulary.Therefore,they should be given an independent status in lexical acquisition research.Finally,the article proposes that lexicographers give new definitions to the two pairs of terms to promote SLA research.
Publication Year: 2007
Publication Date: 2007-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
Access and Citation
AI Researcher Chatbot
Get quick answers to your questions about the article from our AI researcher chatbot