Lexical composition of effective L1 and L2 students' academic presentations

Authors

  • Alla Zareva Old Dominion University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/japl.v6i1.91

Keywords:

P95-95.6 Oral communication. Speech, P326-326.5 Lexicology

Abstract

The present study set out to examine the lexical profiles of L1 (n = 30) and proficient L2 students’ presentations (n = 30), aiming at finding out the overall lexical composition of successful academic presentations. It was also of interest to see how some of the presentations’ lexical features compared to findings about the lexical composition of students’ productively used vocabulary in writing. In addition to this, the analysis focused on the lexical composition of both groups’ oral production in an attempt to uncover patterns of lexical uses that may need to be discussed in oral communication courses, specifically targeting the development of L1 and L2 students’ presentation skills. Overall, the analysis revealed more similarities than differences in the lexical composition of the L1 and L2 presentations while, at the same time, outlined few areas that need to be addressed in oral academic instruction.

Author Biography

  • Alla Zareva, Old Dominion University

    Alla Zareva received her Ph.D. in linguistics from the University of Georgia (USA) and is currently teaching at Old Dominion University. Her research interests range from associative research and structure of the mental lexicon of high proficiency L2 users to features of prepared oral discourse, in particular student academic presentations.

References

Andeweg, B. A., deJong, J. C. and Hoeken, H. (1998) ‘May I have your attention?’: Exordial exordial techniques in informative oral presentations. Technical Communication Quarterly 7: 271–284. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10572259809364631

Arnold, J. E., Losongco, A., Wasow, T. and Ginstrom, R. (2000) Heaviness vs. newness: The effects of structural complexity and discourse status on constituent ordering. Language 76 (1): 28–55.

Boyd, F. A. (1989) Developing presentation skills: A perspective derived from professional education. English for Specific Purposes 8 (2): 195–203. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0889- 4906(89)90030-6

Carter-Thomas, S. and Rowley-Jolivet, E. (2001) Syntactic differences in oral and written scientific discourse: The role of information structure. ASP: La Revue du GERAS: 31–33: 19–37.

Clark, H. (1994) Managing problems in speaking. Speech Communication 15 (3–4): 243– 250. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0167-6393(94)90075-2

Clark, H. and Wasow, T. (1998) Repeating words in spontaneous speech. Cognitive Psychology 37 (3): 201–242. http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/cogp.1998.0693

Cobb, T. (2002) Web VocabProfile (v. 3 Classic) Retrieved 4 June 2010, from: http://www. lextutor.ca/vp/eng/

Crawford-Camiciottoli, B. (2004) Interactive discourse structuring in L2 guest lectures: Some insights from a comparative corpus-based study. Journal of English for Academic Purposes 3 (1): 39–54. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S1475-1585(03)00044-4

Crossley, S. A. and McNamara, D. S. (2009) Computational assessment of lexical differences in L1 and L2 writing. Journal of Second Language Writing 18 (2): 119–135. http://dx.doi. org/10.1016/j.jslw.2009.02.002

Dubois, B. (1980a) The genre and structure of biomedical speeches. Forum Linguisticum 5: 140–168.

Dubois, B. (1980b) The use of slides in biomedical speeches. The ESP Journal 1 (1): 45–50. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0272-2380(80)90009-8

Dubois, B. (1982) ‘And the last slide please’: Regulatory regulatory language function at biomedical meetings. World Language English 1 (2): 263–268. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/ j.1467-971X.1981.tb00464.x

Jarvis, S. (2002) Short texts, best-fitting curves and new measures of lexical diversity. Language Testing 19 (1): 57–84. http://dx.doi.org/10.1191/0265532202lt220oa

Laufer, B. (1995) Beyond 2000. A measure of productive lexicon in a second language. In L. Eubank, L. Selinker and M. Sharwood Smith (eds) The Current State of Interlanguage. Studies in Honor of William E. Rutherford, 265–272. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Laufer, B. and Nation, P. (1995) Vocabulary size and use: lexical richness in L2 written production. Applied Linguistics 16 (3): 307–322. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/applin/16.3.307

Magin, D. and Helmore, P. (2001) Peer and teacher assessments of oral presentation skills: How reliable are they? Studies In Higher Education 26 (3): 287–298. http://dx.doi. org/10.1080/03075070120076264

Malvern, D. D., Richards, B. J., Chipere, N. and Durán, P. (2004) Lexical Diversity and Language Development: Quantification and Assessment. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan. http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/9780230511804

Mauranen, A. (2001) Reflexive academic talk: Observations from MICASE. In R. Simpson and J. Swales (eds) Corpus Linguistics in North America: Selections from the 1999 Symposium, 165–178. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.

Mauranen, A. (2002) ‘A good question’: expressing evaluation in academic speech. In G. Cortese and P. Riley (eds) Domain-specific English: Textual Practices across Communities and Classrooms, 115–140. Frankfurt: Peter Lang.

McCarthy, P. M. and Jarvis, S. (2010) MTLD, vocd-D, and HD-D: A validation study of sophisticated approaches to lexical diversity assessment. Behavior Research Methods 42 (2): 381–392. http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/BRM.42.2.381

McCarthy, P. M. and Jarvis, S. (2007) ‘vocd’: A theoretical and empirical evaluation. Language Testing 24 (4): 459–488. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0265532207080767

Meara, P. (2005) Lexical frequency profiles: A Monte Carlo analysis. Applied Linguistics 26 (1): 32–47. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/applin/amh037

Meara, P. and Bell, H. (2001) P_Lex: A simple and effective way of describing the lexical characteristics of short L2 texts. Prospect 16 (3): 5–19.

Morris, L. and Cobb, T. (2004) Vocabulary profiles as predictors of the academic performance of teaching English as a second language trainees. System 32 (1): 75–87. http://dx.doi. org/10.1016/j.system.2003.05.001

Morse, J. M. (1995) The significance of saturation. Qualitative Health Research 5 (2): 147– 49. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/104973239500500201

Nation, I. S. P. (2001) Learning Vocabulary in Another Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Nicosia, G. (1997) Implementing public speaking skills across the curriculum. Community Review 15: 74–81.

Read, J. (2000) Assessing Vocabulary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http:// dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511732942

Rowley-Jolivet, E. (1999) The pivotal role of conference papers in the network of scientific communication. ASP: La Revue du GERAS 23–26: 176–96.

Simpson, R. (2004) Stylistic features of spoken academic discourse: the role of formulaic expressions. In U. Connor and T. Upton (eds) Discourse in the Professions: Perspectives from Corpus Linguistics, 37–64. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Swales, J. M. (2004) Research Genres: Explorations and Applications. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Thompson, S. (2002) As the story unfolds: the uses of narrative in research presentations. In E. Ventola, C. Shalom, and S. Thompson (eds) The Language of Conferencing, 147–167. Frankfurt: Peter Lang.

Tidball, F. and Treffers-Daller, J. (2007) Exploring measures of vocabulary richness in semi-spontaneous French speech: Aa quest for the Holy Grail? In H. Daller, J. Milton and J. Treffers-Daller (eds) Modelling and Assessing Vocabulary Knowledge, 133–149. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Tweedie, F. J. and Baayen, R. H. (1998) How variable may a constant be? Measures in lexical richness in perspective. Computers and the Humanities 32 (5): 323–352. http://dx.doi. org/10.1023/A:1001749303137

Ure, J. (1971) Lexical density and register variation. In G. E. Perren and J. I. M. Trim (eds) Application of Linguistics: Selected Papers of the Second International Congress of Applied Linguistics, Cambridge, 1969, 443–452. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Vassileva, I. (2002) Speaker-audience interaction: The case of Bulgarians presenting in English. In E. Ventola, C. Shalom, and S. Thompson (eds) The Language of Conferencing, 255–276. Frankfurt: Peter Lang.

Vermeer, A. (2000) Coming to grips with lexical richness in spontaneous speech data. Language Testing 17 (1): 65–83.

Webber, P. (2005) Interactive features in medical conference monologue. English for Specific Purposes 24 (2): 157–181. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.esp.2004.02.003

Weissberg, B. (1993) The graduate seminar: Another research-process genre. English for Specific Purposes 12 (1): 23–36. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0889-4906(93)90025-J

Wimmer, G. and Altmann, G. (1999) Review article: On vocabulary richness. Journal of Quantitative Linguistics 6 (1): 1–9. http://dx.doi.org/10.1076/jqul.6.1.1.4148

Zareva, A. (2007) Structure of the L2 mental lexicon: How does it compare to native speakers’ lexical organization? Second Language Research 23 (2): 123–153. http://dx.doi. org/10.1177/0267658307076543

Zareva, A. (2009) Informational packaging, level of formality, and the use of circumstance adverbials in L1 and L2 student academic presentations. Journal of English for Academic Purposes 8 (1): 55–68. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2008.12.002

Zareva, A., Schwanenflugel, P. and Nikolova, Y. (2005) Relationship between lexical competence and language proficiency: Variable sensitivity. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 27: 567–595. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0272263105050254

Published

2015-09-14

Issue

Section

Articles

How to Cite

Zareva, A. (2015). Lexical composition of effective L1 and L2 students’ academic presentations. Journal of Applied Linguistics and Professional Practice, 6(1), 91-110. https://doi.org/10.1558/japl.v6i1.91

Most read articles by the same author(s)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 > >>