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What the corpus-based investigation outlined in this chapter suggests is that the quest for an ever larger and larger vocabulary reflects a rather one-dimensional view of advanced level achievement.In the final analysis, the classroom or course materials will only be able to traverse the surface of the vast iceberg of low frequency vocabulary and the onus will be on the learner him/herself to achieve the goals, but the goals are achievable given the right strategies and motivations.In this conversational extract from the CANCODE corpus, note how the speakers vary their ways of essentially saying that someone was 'in love' (indicated in bold); such a skill is a marker of the advanced user of vocabulary, someone who has created the necessary network of associations between the various items rather than just storing them as an atomised list in the memory.One proviso which needs repeating here relates to the mismatch between frequency of occurrence and the powerful, natural tendency of the mind to learn associated sets of items which can be retrieved as wholes, as well as the notion of psychological saliency, which may generate the curiosity and motivation to learn even rare items such as idioms.Words at the lower frequency levels tend to bring with them more sub-senses and extended meanings, and more obvious cultural connotations, in the sense that high frequency words can be, and usually are, dealt with at lower proficiency levels in terms of only their core, most frequent meanings - a sensible way of tackling the polysemic nature of most words in graded learning, in the view of Lennon (1990).Connotations and recurrent collocations can be usefully traced using concordance evidence.Such a learner may not in fact have a massive vocabulary, but may be better equipped to use and explore the vocabulary of the target language than one who simply adds more and more words without building an integrated lexicon and without developing that 'learner agency' so often discussed in sociocultural theory (Lantolf and Appel 1994a, 1994b), which can enable the learner to surpass instructional intervention and become a better, self-regulated learner. Explicit focus on such items may be necessary to tune the learner's antennae to be receptive to new ones when they are used both in and out of class, and to foster learner agency and independence Vocabulary skills include ways of maximising learning opportunities during interaction (e.g. asking for paraphrases, probing the meaning of unfamiliar items with one's interlocutor, etc.).A focus simply on linear increase in vocabulary size (or vocabulary breadth as it is often termed) produces diminishing returns as far as text coverage is concerned; there is evidence anyway that learners' vocabularies are far from stable and may fluctuate up and down, with words known at one point in time forgotten at a later point (Meara and Rodriguez Sanchez 1993).To develop awareness and skills that will stand the learner in good stead for becoming an autonomous vocabulary-learner is a question of developing activities alongside the actual learning of words which introduce to the learner notions such as collocation, metaphor, connotation, etc.And since the vocabulary learning task is open-ended and impossible to complete in a typical institutional programme, the implication is that the advanced level should also be defined by the extent to which the learner is able to operate independently with a set of skills and strategies for processing and using new vocabulary.On the other hand, the advanced level learner will not be defined simply by his/her vocabulary size vis-a-vis native speakers, but rather more by his/her ability to develop depth of knowledge and the tools and strategies to pursue vocabulary learning and use independently.To push the vocabulary size towards comprehension targets above 90% for typical texts seems feasible, and involves ultimately aiming for a 9-10.000-word receptive vocabulary.native-speaking environment.

What the corpus-based investigation outlined in this chapter suggests is that the quest
for an ever larger and larger vocabulary reflects a rather one-dimensional view of advanced
level achievement. A focus simply on linear increase in vocabulary size (or vocabulary
breadth as it is often termed) produces diminishing returns as far as text coverage is concerned;
there is evidence anyway that learners’ vocabularies are far from stable and may
fluctuate up and down, with words known at one point in time forgotten at a later point
(Meara and Rodriguez Sánchez 1993). What needs to happen alongside the increase in
breadth is an increase in depth of knowledge, i.e. the knowledge of the various aspects of use
of a word, including, beyond its formal properties, its collocations, its sub-senses, and its
semantic prosody. Such knowledge ultimately contributes to the learner’s ability to create
associations between words and to place them meaningfully within various networks in
relation to other words (Meara 1996; Henriksen 1999; Haastrup and Henriksen 2000). Depth
of knowledge is not simply a second-best to ever-increasing breadth: Qian (2002), for
instance, found that vocabulary depth was as significant as vocabulary size in predicting performance
on academic reading. And since the vocabulary learning task is open-ended and
impossible to complete in a typical institutional programme, the implication is that the
advanced level should also be defined by the extent to which the learner is able to operate independently with a set of skills and strategies for processing and using new vocabulary.
Such a learner may not in fact have a massive vocabulary, but may be better equipped to use
and explore the vocabulary of the target language than one who simply adds more and more
words without building an integrated lexicon and without developing that ‘learner agency’
so often discussed in sociocultural theory (Lantolf and Appel 1994a, 1994b), which can
enable the learner to surpass instructional intervention and become a better, self-regulated
learner. Independence is often conflated with ‘autonomy’; in most cases of interaction (especially
face-to-face speech) individuals do not operate autonomously but effective learners
exploit the support of their environment, their interlocutors and other resources, and they
can do so independently of any pedagogical intervention1.
We are now in a better position to confront the aims of an advanced vocabulary learning
syllabus sketched out in section 2.8, above. The corpus-based investigation has provided
useful answers to some of the quantitative issues and in part offered guidelines for the
more qualitative issues.
To push the vocabulary size towards comprehension targets above 90% for typical
texts seems feasible, and involves ultimately aiming for a 9-10.000-word receptive vocabulary.
The advanced learner can be expected to come to the task with anything from 4-6000
words already known, presenting a learning target of around 4-5000 words to achieve
good, fluent reading levels. Most teachers will recognise, however, that 5000 words is an
impossible target for direct classroom teaching as such, and its achievement will depend on
motivated work out of class, including extensive L reading, training of learning strategies
which will be available both during and after formal/institutional learning, and, in ideal situations,
some time spent in an L native-speaking environment. The other, best option, is
to encourage learners to specialise. The example mentioned above was specialisation in
academic vocabulary, but specialisation of any kind can produce dramatic results, whether
it be reading cookery books or gardening books, or pursuing the vocabulary of music, business
or politics, whatever one’s personal interests are. And one may safely speculate that
with the increased motivation provided by reading texts about things one is truly interested
in will come benefits for the general vocabulary breadth and depth.
In terms of exposing learners to a vocabulary drawn from frequency levels beyond the
first 6000-word band, corpus-based techniques come into their own, since, even at lower
levels of frequency, it is possible to generate word lists which differentiate low frequency
items from extremely rare items. One proviso which needs repeating here relates to the
mismatch between frequency of occurrence and the powerful, natural tendency of the
mind to learn associated sets of items which can be retrieved as wholes, as well as the notion
of psychological saliency, which may generate the curiosity and motivation to learn even
rare items such as idioms. On this last point, the corpus size may need to be expanded in
order to generate sufficient occurrences of salient but infrequent items so that relevant patterns
of use can be observed.
Words at the lower frequency levels tend to bring with them more sub-senses and
extended meanings, and more obvious cultural connotations, in the sense that high frequency
words can be, and usually are, dealt with at lower proficiency levels in terms of only their
core, most frequent meanings – a sensible way of tackling the polysemic nature of most words
in graded learning, in the view of Lennon (1990).Connotations and recurrent collocations can
be usefully traced using concordance evidence. The issue of chunks also comes into play, and
corresponding questions about the distribution of expressions in speech versus in writing.
To develop awareness and skills that will stand the learner in good stead for becoming
an autonomous vocabulary-learner is a question of developing activities alongside the
actual learning of words which introduce to the learner notions such as collocation,
metaphor, connotation, etc. For example, in the case of English, many learners have an
awareness of idioms of the ‘verb + complement’ type (hit the sack, carry the can, jump on
the bandwagon), but probably few are aware of the pervasiveness in everyday language of
binomial idioms (rough and ready, part and parcel, out and about, down and out; see also
chapter 4). Explicit focus on such items may be necessary to tune the learner’s antennae to
be receptive to new ones when they are used both in and out of class, and to foster learner
agency and independence Vocabulary skills include ways of maximising learning opportunities
during interaction (e.g. asking for paraphrases, probing the meaning of unfamiliar
items with one’s interlocutor, etc.). Vocabulary skill also involves being able to retrieve
synonyms to create conversational flow and elegant variation in written text production. In
this conversational extract from the CANCODE corpus, note how the speakers vary their
ways of essentially saying that someone was ‘in love’ (indicated in bold); such a skill is a
marker of the advanced user of vocabulary, someone who has created the necessary network
of associations between the various items rather than just storing them as an atomised
list in the memory.
In the final analysis, the classroom or course materials will only be able to traverse the
surface of the vast iceberg of low frequency vocabulary and the onus will be on the learner
him/herself to achieve the goals, but the goals are achievable given the right strategies and
motivations.
In sum, neither the basic nor the advanced level vocabulary programme need be a
haphazard free-for-all where planning and organisation simply dissolve into the fog of tens
of thousands of unknown words. The basic level learner needs to achieve the target of covering
the core items as fast as possible so that more effective, independent learning and use
of the language can emerge. On the other hand, the advanced level learner will not be
defined simply by his/her vocabulary size vis-à-vis native speakers, but rather more by
his/her ability to develop depth of knowledge and the tools and strategies to pursue vocabulary
learning and use independently. With a combination of corpus-based insights and
strategic training for learners who will have to complete the task for themselves, we may
go at least some way towards presenting a vocabulary level pedagogy worthy of the word
programme.