#1 HOW VOCABULARY APPEARS IN
LIFE
|
Vocabulary Research Says:
The
importance of vocabulary knowledge to school success, in general, and reading
comprehension, in particular, is widely documented.
The
National Research Council concluded that vocabulary development is a
fundamental goal for students in the early grades.
Children
enter school with "meaningful differences" in vocabulary knowledge.
A.
Emergence of the Problem
In a typical hour, the average child hears:
Family Status
|
Actual Differences in Quantity of Words Heard
|
Actual Differences in Quality of Words Heard
|
Welfare
|
616
words
|
5
affirmations, 11 prohibitions
|
Working
Class
|
1,251
words
|
12
affirmations, 7 prohibitions
|
Professional
|
2,153
words
|
32
affirmations, 5 prohibitions
|
Cumulative Vocabulary Experiences
Family Status
|
Words heard per hour
|
Words heard in a 100-hour week
|
Words heard in a 5,200 hour year
|
Words heard in 4 years
|
Welfare
|
616
|
62,000
|
3
million
|
13
million
|
Working
Class
|
1,251
|
125,000
|
6
million
|
26
million
|
Professional
|
2,153
|
215,000
|
11
million
|
45
million
|
Meaningful Differences
By the time the children
were 3 years old, parents in less
economically favored circumstances had said fewer different words in their
cumulative monthly vocabularies than the children in the most economically
advantaged families in the same period of time.
Cumulative Vocabulary
|
|
Children
from welfare families:
|
500
words
|
Children
from working class families:
|
700
words
|
Children
from professional families:
|
1,100
words
|
B.
The
Vocabulary Gap
Children
who enter with limited vocabulary knowledge grow much more discrepant over time
from their peers who have rich vocabulary knowledge.
The
number of words students learn varies greatly:
2
vs. 8 words per day
|
750
vs. 3,000 per year
|
Printed
school English, as represented by materials in grades 3 to 9, contains 88,533
distinct word families.
88,533
word families result in total volumes of nearly 500,000 graphically distinct
word types, including proper names. Roughly half of 500,000 words occur once or
less in a billion words of text.
An
average student in grades 3 through 12 is likely to learn approximately 3,000
new vocabulary words each year, assuming he or she reads between 500,000 and a
million running words of text a school year.
Between
grades 1 and 3, it is estimated that economically disadvantaged students'
vocabularies increase by about 3,000 words per year and middle-class students'
vocabularies increase by about 5,000 words per year.
Children's
vocabulary size approximately doubles between grades 3 and 7.
Massive
vocabulary growth appears to occur without much help from teachers.
- Variation in the Amount of Student Independent Reading Significantly Affects Vocabulary Growth
Research
has shown that children who read even ten minutes a day outside of school
experience substantially higher rates of vocabulary growth between second and
fifth grade than children who do little or no reading.
Percentile Rank
|
Minutes Per Day
|
Words Read Per Year
|
||
Books
|
Text
|
Books
|
Text
|
|
98
|
65.0
|
67.3
|
4,358,000
|
4,733,000
|
90
|
21.2
|
33.4
|
1,823,000
|
2,357,000
|
80
|
14.2
|
24.6
|
1,146,000
|
1,697,000
|
70
|
9.6
|
16.9
|
622,000
|
1,168,000
|
60
|
6.5
|
13.1
|
432,000
|
722,000
|
50
|
4.6
|
9.2
|
282,000
|
601,000
|
40
|
3.2
|
6.2
|
200,000
|
421,000
|
30
|
1.8
|
4.3
|
106,000
|
251,000
|
20
|
0.7
|
2.4
|
21,000
|
134,000
|
10
|
0.1
|
1.0
|
8,000
|
51,000
|
2
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
8,000
|
Selected
Statistics for Major Sources of Spoken and Written Language[6]
Rank of Median Word
|
Rare Words per 1000
|
|
Printed
Texts
|
||
Abstracts
of scientific articles
|
4,389
|
128.0
|
Newspapers
|
1,690
|
68.3
|
Popular
Magazines
|
1,399
|
65.7
|
Adult
Books
|
1,058
|
52.7
|
Comic
Books
|
867
|
53.5
|
Children's
Books
|
627
|
30.9
|
Preschool
Books
|
578
|
16.3
|
Television
Texts
|
||
Popular
prime-time adult shows
|
490
|
22.7
|
Popular
prime-time children's shows
|
543
|
20.2
|
Cartoon
shows
|
598
|
30.8
|
Mr. Rogers and Sesame Street
|
413
|
2.0
|
Adult
Speech
|
||
Expert
Witness Testimony
|
1,008
|
28.4
|
College
graduates to friends, spouses
|
496
|
17.3
|
#2 HOW VOCABULARY USES
|
A. Importance of Strong Vocabulary
In
addition to your appearance and the way you carry yourself, people will judge
you based on the words that come out of your mouth. Even if you are a
mathematical genius, having a poor vocabulary will send across a message that
you're not very intelligent. Having a
Poor Vocabulary Can Close Doors. Why so? While some people reading this may
feel that they don't care what others think about them, there is more to this
issue than what is apparent on the surface. When you apply for a job, or
you have to give a speech, your vocabulary will determine whether or not you're
successful. Imagine having a million dollar idea, but not being able to get any
investors because of your poor vocabulary.
It
is especially important for technically oriented people to pay attention to
their vocabulary. When I say technically oriented people, I'm specifically
talking about those who are good with numbers, mechanics, and other technical
subjects. While they are brilliant in these subjects, many of these people are
not so brilliant when it comes to writing or speaking. It is not their fault.
Most people have a preference for using either the left or right side of their
brain, and most are lacking in one area. Being able to improve your vocabulary
will open a lot of doors, doors that would normally be closed.
Developing a great vocabulary is one
of the most overlooked ways to improve our lives. It is often believed that
learning many words is only useful for writers and speakers, but the truth is
that everyone benefits from it, both personally and professionally.
B.
Vocabulary
Sharpens Your Communication
Contrary to what some people
believe, the point of having a good vocabulary is not to use fancy, arcane or
complicated words to impress or confuse other people. In order to be effective,
communication has to be simple. What’s the point in learning so many new words?
Doesn’t that only make using language more complicated?
If learning new words and using
simple language seem like contradictory goals at first, it makes complete sense
when you understand that having a good vocabulary is more than knowing a large
amount of words: the point of
having a good vocabulary is being able
to choose words with greater precision.
Think of your vocabulary as your
“communication toolbox”: every word is a tool, ready to be used at the right
time. The more tools you master, the better your chances are of finding the
right one for the communication task at hand. But having a huge stock of words
at your disposal is not the ultimate goal. Every time you grasp a new word, you
end up with more than just a new tool:
you understand the ones you already know better.
By comparing the meaning of new
words with the ones you already know, you understand them in a deeper way,
enabling you to choose them more effectively. More often than not, this means
knowing the easier words and their meaning more thoroughly. Hence, a good vocabulary often makes your
communication simpler – and not the opposite as many people think.
"The
difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference
between lightning and a lightning bug." –Mark Twain
C.
Vocabulary
Opens Your Mind
My favorite story that illustrates
the importance of vocabulary is from George Orwell’s dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.
In a dark view of the future, Orwell
pictured a world ruled by an authoritarian government that controls every
citizen. In this world, no one escapes being watched by video cameras, which
are present even inside people’s homes. But when it comes to control, there was
something even more effective than the ubiquitous cameras, and that was the
official language: Newspeak.
Newspeak is rigidly controlled by
the government, and it’s the only language whose vocabulary gets smaller every
year. In Newspeak, words that convey subversive thoughts – like “freedom” –
simply don’t exist anymore. By systematically removing or distorting the
meaning of words, the government takes away the tools to question its
authority. Without words to exchange or perpetuate ideas, these ideas start to
gradually disappear from people’s minds. Without not even being aware of it,
people became completely powerless and easily controlled.
Although this example may be a bit
extreme, it serves to illustrate the point: when you lack words, you shut down new insights and lines of reasoning.
People who possess a limited vocabulary have a much tougher time breaking out
from old patterns of thought or questioning. By the same token, each new word
you learn opens a new avenue of thought, empowering you to think or take action
in ways you could never have before.
“The
basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you
can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the
words.” –Philip K.
Dick
D.
Vocabulary
Gets You Results
The researcher Johnson
O’Connor,
known for his studies about the impact of vocabulary on people’s lives, has
drawn many amazing conclusions from a vast amount of tests and experiments, performed in more than 20 years of
research.
A significant part of his research
observed successful people in many walks of life, trying to correlate their
success with factors such as gender, age, scholarship levels and many others,
including vocabulary level. He tested people on the most diverse endeavors,
such as students about to take their SATs, engineers working in their areas of
expertise, executives in large corporations and many others.
He always found the same results, no
matter which area he looked at, and no matter how he analyzed the data: a person’s vocabulary level is the best
single predictor of occupational success.
This astounding discovery can be
illustrated by the following study, made with managers in 39 large
manufacturing companies. Below are the average results of an extensive
vocabulary test, averaged and grouped by hierarchical level:
O’Connor took extreme care to
statistically isolate variables that could distort the results. Scholarship
level and age, for example, were taken into account to make sure it was indeed
vocabulary, and not something related, that correlated with success. His
studies also show that vocabulary usually comes before achievement, and not as a consequence of it. Even if we’re
not able to ultimately prove the
correlation, it’s hard to ignore O’Connor’s findings.
What determines professional
success? Especially for knowledge workers, I would risk saying professional success depends entirely on
thinking and communication skills. If you analyze every activity you
perform as a knowledge worker, you’ll always get down to either thinking (as
the activity that leads to the creation of something new) or communicating (as
the activity that gets your ideas across). Well, if words are tools for both
thought and communication, it’s no surprise that those who master them have a
much greater chance of success – not only professionally, but in their lives as
a whole.
E. Why is a Strong Vocabulary
Important?
We use spoken and written words every
single day to communicate ideas, thoughts, and emotions to those around us.
Sometimes we communicate successfully, and sometimes we’re not quite so
successful. “That’s not what I meant!” becomes our mantra (an often repeated
word or phrase). However, a good vocabulary can help us say what we mean.
For example, let’s say that you are
outside in your yard and see a large black car stop in the road. You can see
four tinted windows on one side of the car, and you assume there are four
tinted windows on the other side, too. Just then, the driver’s door opens, and
a man wearing white gloves steps out. He walks to the back of the car and looks
underneath. He shrugs his shoulders, climbs back into the car, and drives away.
After you remember to close your mouth, which has been hanging open, you run
next door to tell your friend what you saw. What do you say? If you know a
couple of key words, you can quickly explain to this person what you saw.
Instead of describing the number of windows and the length of the car, you
could simply say that you saw a black limousine (a long, luxurious car). Then,
instead of describing the man with the white gloves, you could say you saw the
chauffeur (someone paid to drive a car or limousine) walk to the back of the
car. Knowing these key words can help you quickly and effectively communicate
your meaning.
When you’re faced with a writing
assignment, a good vocabulary is an indispensable (very important or necessary)
tool. If you have several synonyms (words with similar meanings) in your
repertoire (“toolbox”), you’ll be able to choose the best word for the job.
Avoid vague words like “stuff” or “things” when you write. These words do not
give the reader a good sense of your meaning. Also, use strong verbs that give
the reader good information.
Here’s an
example:
POOR: People do a lot of things.
BETTER: People perform a lot of tasks.
·
E.1.
Successful Communication
Vocabulary plays an essential role
in creating understanding of language through what a student hears and reads in
school. Hence, vocabulary becomes all the more important than grammar, as it is
this vocabulary that helps the student to communicate successfully with people
within and outside his circle. Thus, for this reason, it becomes vital to build
up a large store of words. Studies indicate that possessing an extensive
vocabulary has strong links with achieving school and college success.
·
E.2.
Expression Of Thoughts
You need words to think and to
express those thoughts, you again need words. To prove this idiom, try solving
a problem without coming up with words. You can’t, as it is just plain
impossible. Thus, language is the key tool that helps our mind to think, plan,
solve problems, and finally succeed. Therefore, the more words you know, the
more ways you can use to think about things and more tools can be utilized to
plan and solve problems. All in all, a better vocabulary improves your ability
to think and express yourself.
·
E.3.
Self Judgment
Accept it or not, every time you
open your mouth to speak, it is not the language that people are judging, but
the words and expressions you emphasis on, thereby figuring out how competent,
successful, or smart you are. Research shows that people with a good vocabulary
are more likely to be judged as competent and proficient.
·
E.4.
Better Image
As you learn and understand the
meaning of more words, you will be able to use better descriptive words to
communicate your thoughts clearly and fluently. Further, this can reduce your
chances of making eliminating noises, such as ‘umm’, ‘uhh’, ‘you see’, ‘you
know’, and ‘I mean’, while indulging in face to face conversation. It is only
after learning colorful and interesting words and strengthening your vocabulary
that you will be able to project a more intelligent image in public and personal
grounds.
·
E.5.
Better Job Opportunities
A low vocabulary serves to a serious
handicap for any individual with poor communication skills. Though ambitious
and energetic people are able to push their ways to reach heights, they settle
at a limited plateau only because of their low vocabulary. As a result, they
never advance. Believe it or not, the world expects us to display our knowledge
rather than our possibilities to achieve our goals. The aptitudes are left far
behind as the company pays us for our knowledge. Thus, vocabulary,
unintentionally, plays an important role in the resume of a professional to get
a good career.
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