Continuing to Explore the Multidimensional Nature of Lexical Sophistication

The Case of Oral Proficiency Interviews

Datos Bibliográficos

ID21360137
AutoresMasaki Eguchi (0000-0002-0791-4935, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Department of Second Language Studies Moore Hall, 1890 East West Road Honolulu HI 96822, autor de correspondencia), Kristopher Kyle (0000-0001-5415-9672, University of Oregon Department of Linguistics 161 Straub Hall, 1290 University of Oregon Eugene OR 97403‐1290, autor de correspondencia)
Año2020
Volumen104
Número2
Páginas381-400
Fecha de publicación2020-06-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaModern Language Journal (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0026-7902 • E-ISSN: 1540-4781
EditorialWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/modl.12637
OpenAlexW3023555277
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas34
Referencias citadas64

Lexical sophistication has been an important indicator of productive lexical proficiency for almost 30 years. Although lexical sophistication has most often been operationalized as the proportion of low frequency words in a text, a growing body of research has indicated that a number of indices such as concreteness, hypernymy, and n‐gram association strengths meaningfully contribute to the construct. While the increase in available indices has expanded our understanding of the multidimensional construct, the sheer number of indices presents a practical barrier for researchers. Although some studies have begun to address this issue, most have been confined to the analysis of argumentative tasks, which are not necessarily representative of the range of tasks learners may encounter. This study therefore investigates the structure of lexical sophistication indices in a large learner corpus of English second language (L2) oral proficiency interviews (OPIs). An exploratory factor analysis identified 10 factors, 7 of which explained approximately 58% of the variance in OPI scores in a follow‐up regression analysis. The results suggest that while some features of lexical sophistication (e.g., concreteness) may be task independent, others (e.g., frequency) may be task specific

Argumentative · Cognitive psychology · Concreteness · Construct (python library) · Developmental psychology · Exploratory factor analysis · Linguistics · Operationalization · Psychometrics · Sociology · Sophistication · Computer Science · Discourse Analysis in Language Studies · Natural Language Processing Techniques · Psychology · Second Language Acquisition and Learning