The lexical competence network moved to the University of Tübingen in 2024

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Welcome to the homepage of the Lexical Competence Network

Objective

The Network for Lexical Competence (NLK) was founded in 2022 in cooperation with the Chairs of Didactics of Romance Languages at TUD Dresden University of Technology, the University of Augsburg and the University of Paderborn.

The NLK sees itself as a forum for didactic exchange on the lexical competence of foreign language learners at school and university. The aim is to strengthen and make visible this area, which is neglected in foreign language didactics. The NLK focuses on the Romance foreign languages French, Spanish and Italian. At the same time, it is interested in exchanging ideas with the didactics of other foreign languages and with other related disciplines (e.g. linguistics).

Recent work and research results will be presented in lectures and discussions with the aim of providing forward-looking impulses for the development of lexical competence in didactic research and teaching practice. The network is aimed at interested subject didacticians, teachers and students.

Initial situation

The founding of the NLK is based on the assumption that lexical competence plays a key role in the actual achievement of intercultural communicative action-taking capacity. However, both widespread complaints from teaching practice and empirical studies on the receptive vocabulary skills of foreign language learners show that there are deep gaps between the justified demand for solid lexical competence and the actual development of this competence (cf. Bürgel/Siepmann 2010, 2012; Bürgel 2020).

It is possible that the focus on skills in foreign language teaching has led to an overemphasis on functional communicative skills while at the same time neglecting vocabulary (cf. Bürgel/Siepmann 2010: 191; Plikat 2020). However, as Abel (2002: 14) rightly emphasizes, language skills are only achieved to the extent that one also has the necessary vocabulary. Moreover, the ability to understand a foreign language at a high level and to express oneself fluently, differentiatedly and appropriately in it - in other words, intercultural communicative action-taking capacity - depends to a large extent on the receptive and productive vocabulary available. These connections, which have apparently been forgotten in German discourse, have been impressively demonstrated by numerous empirical studies since the 1970s (cf. Pike 1979; Steltmann 1979; Meara/Jones 1990; Staehr 2009; Bürgel/Siepmann 2012).

Particularly from a competence-oriented perspective, foreign language teaching today cannot only teach declarative knowledge of individual words or grammatical structures, but must also focus on their implementation, i.e. procedural knowledge and skills. It therefore makes sense to further develop forms of vocabulary work that are still widely used with regard to lexical and lexicogrammatical competence.

To summarize, several problem areas can currently be outlined which affect the topic of lexical competence in research and teaching practice alike:

• Many pupils, but also many students and teachers, do not have sufficient lexical competence for the level of foreign language competence they are aiming for.
• Lexical competence is usually promoted in an ineffective and inefficient manner in school and university teaching practice.
• Strategies for the systematic development of lexical competence are rarely taught in teacher training.
• The selection of vocabulary is usually intuitive and subjective and is not sufficiently oriented towards actual language use.
• There is a considerable lack of research in German-speaking countries a) on learner lexicology (especially on empirically validated learning vocabularies) and b) on lexical competence in general.

Lexical competence

Our understanding of lexical competence is based on...

• ...the criticism of a structuralist-inspired words-and-rules conception of language and language learning
• ...the consistently idiomatic nature of natural languages, which is reflected in all types of lexical units of varying complexity (collocations, phrasemes, idioms, etc.)
• ...the recognition of the central importance of lexical competence for successful foreign language learning and as the core of intercultural communicative action-taking capacity
• ...the predominant teaching of a) lexical units under the aspect of usefulness and frequency of occurrence in language use and b) grammatical skills as lexico-grammar

Such a broad understanding of lexical competence encompasses the receptive and productive mastery of lexical units in terms of form, communicative function and situational-cultural meaning (cf. Siepmann 2007: 241; Targońska 2011; Nation 2013: 27).

It is crucial that linguistic action is associated with the use of word units in a "socially predictable" (Feilke 1996: 262) way. Speakers create standardized linguistic formulations for repetitive oral and written communication situations. Competent speakers are therefore able to use the expected, preferred and predictable lexis for a communication situation (cf. Aguado 2002, 2014).

The focus of lexical competence is not just on individual words, but above all on multi-word combinations of varying complexity (collocations, idioms, phrasemes, etc.). This focus can be explained by the fact that language consists of up to 80% multi-word compounds, as has been amply demonstrated by the analysis of mass language data and corpora (cf. Altenberg 1998). Competent language use is therefore characterized by an intensive use of lexical 'prefabricated components'(idiom principle, cf. Sinclair 1991).

In this sense, lexical competence is the linchpin of intercultural communicative action-taking capacity. It must therefore be given the importance it deserves in foreign language teaching and learning.

Planned activities of the NLK

• Organization of an annual colloquium, which will take place alternately at one of the locations Dresden, Augsburg and Paderborn
• Documentation of research activities in the field of lexical competence
• Cooperation with stakeholders in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd phases of teacher training
• Cooperation with textbook publishers

Contact us

Are you involved in research or teaching in the field of lexical competence? Please do not hesitate to contact us!

Prof. Dr. Christoph Bürgel Prof. Dr. Christiane Fäcke Junior Prof. Dr. Jochen Plikat

Literature

• Abel, Fritz (2002): "An important stage on the way to transparent certification of foreign language skills - no more". In: Bausch, Karl-Richard / Christ, Herbert / Königs, Frank G. / Krumm, Hans-Jürgen (eds.): Der Gemeinsame europäische Referenzrahmen für Sprachen in der Diskussion. Working papers from the 22nd Spring Conference on Research in Foreign Language Teaching, Tübingen: Narr, 9-21.
• Aguado, Karin (2002): "Formulaic sequences and their function in L2 acquisition". In: Journal of Applied Linguistics 37, 27-49.
• Aguado, Karin (2014): "'Can you just...?' Chunks as central features of competent language use and recommendations for their treatment in foreign language teaching". In: Magazine - Journal of the Andalusian Association of Germanists. Special issue on new trends in GFL teaching 1, 5-9.
• Altenberg, Bengt (1998): "On the phraseology of spoken English: the evidence of recurrent word combinations". In: Cowie, Anthony P. (ed.): Phraseology: Theory, Analysis and Applications. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 101-122.
• Bürgel, Christoph (2020): "The more highly qualified, the better? Receptive phrasemaking skills of French learners". In: Journal of Foreign Language Research 31: 2, 207-234.
• Bürgel, Christoph / Siepmann, Dirk (2010): "What can French teachers and learners do? Vocabulary and listening comprehension skills put to the test". In: Journal of Foreign Language Research 21: 2, 191-216.
• Bürgel, Christoph / Siepmann, Dirk (2012): "Wortschatz- und Hörverstehenskompetenzen von Französischlehrern und -studierenden". In: Tinnefeld, Thomas (ed.): Hochschulischer Fremdsprachenunterricht. Anforderungen, Ausrichtung, Spezifik. Saarbrücken: HTW Saar, 91-113.
• Feilke, Helmuth (1996): Sprache als soziale Gestalt. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.
• Meara, Paul / Jones, Glyn (1990): Eurocentres Vocabulary Size Test User's Guide. Zurich: Eurocentres.
• Nation, Ian Stephen Paul (2013): Learning vocabulary in another language. Second Edition. New York: Cambridge University Press.
• Pike, Lewis W. (1979): An Evaluation of Alternative Item Formats for Testing English as a Foreign Language. TOEFL Research Reports No. 2, Princeton, NJ.
• Plikat, Jochen (2020): "Lexical competence - stepchild of foreign language didactic research in German-speaking countries?" In: Foreign Languages Teaching and Learning 49: 2, 114-129.
• Schmitt, Norbert (2019): "Understanding vocabulary acquisition, instruction, and assessment: A research agenda". In: Language Teaching 52: 2, 261-274. doi: 10.1017/S0261444819000053 (14.06.2022).
• Siepmann, Dirk (2007): "Vocabulary and grammar: bringing together what belongs together." In: Contributions to foreign language teaching 46, 59-80.
• Sinclair, John (1991): Corpus, concordance, collocation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Staehr, Lars Stenius (2009): "Vocabulary knowledge and advanced listening comprehension in English as a foreign language". In: Studies in Second Language Acquisition 31, 577-607.
• Steltmann, Karl (1979): "Überlegungen zur Leistungsüberprüfung im Fremdsprachenunterricht". In: Praxis des neusprachlichen Unterrichts, 84-85.
• Targońska, Joanna (2011): "Lexical competence - a plea for a broader conception of the term". In: Glottodidactica XXXVII. https://repozytorium.amu.edu.pl/bitstream/10593/1684/1/Targonska.pdf (14.06.2022).