Vocabulary Terminology Flashcards

What is a 'collocation' in English vocabulary teaching?

Answer: Words that naturally and frequently occur together

A collocation is a pair or group of words that habitually appear together, such as 'make a decision' or 'heavy rain.'

Which term describes a word's emotional or cultural associations beyond its literal meaning?

Answer: Connotation

Connotation refers to the implied or emotional meaning attached to a word beyond its dictionary definition.

What does 'lexical density' measure in a text?

Answer: The proportion of content words to total words

Lexical density measures the ratio of content words (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs) to the total number of words in a text.

A 'false cognate' (false friend) is best described as:

Answer: A word that looks or sounds similar across languages but differs in meaning

False cognates are words in two languages that appear similar but have different meanings, such as English 'embarrassed' and Spanish 'embarazada' (pregnant).

In vocabulary instruction, what is 'spaced repetition'?

Answer: Reviewing vocabulary at increasing intervals to strengthen retention

Spaced repetition is a learning technique where vocabulary items are reviewed at gradually increasing intervals to maximize long-term retention.

What is a 'lexical set'?

Answer: A group of words sharing a common topic or semantic field

A lexical set is a group of words associated with a particular topic or semantic field, such as kitchen items: knife, fork, spoon, bowl.

Which vocabulary learning strategy involves inferring meaning from surrounding text?

Answer: Contextual guessing

Contextual guessing (inferring from context) is a strategy where learners use surrounding words and sentences to deduce the meaning of unknown words.