On the role of context in first- and second-language vocabulary learning (1995)

William E. Nagy website
Technical Report Nr. 627
Center for the Study of Reading
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign


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Nagy, W. (1995). On the role of context in first-and second-language vocabulary learning.

ABSTRACT

The importance of context in vocabulary learning is evident from two common-sense observations: what a word means often depends on the context in which it is used, and people pick up much of their vocabulary knowledge from context, apart from explicit instruction.

Available evidence supports a relatively strong version of each of these observations.

Research in learning words from context reveals significant limitations of "guessing meanings from context" as a means of learning words. A single encounter with an unfamiliar word in context seldom reveals more than a fraction of the word's meaning.

However, evidence can also be found that shows the limitations of decontextualized forms of vocabulary learning.

Though wide reading cannot be viewed as a panacea, there is good reason to consider it a necessary condition for the development of a large reading vocabulary.

Although the limits of contextual guessing must be recognized, context remains an important source of information.

And although learning from context is demonstrably more difficult in a second language, second-language readers gain significant word knowledge simply from reading, and increasing their volume of reading produces significant gains in vocabulary knowledge and other aspects of linguistic proficiency.

Effective use of context to disambiguate words, or to infer the meanings of unfamiliar words, depends on a variety of types of knowledge--world knowledge, linguistic knowledge, and strategic knowledge.

To some extent, world knowledge and strategic knowledge can help compensate for limitations in second-language learners' linguistic knowledge.