The General Concept of Vocabulary

One thing that differentiates human from animals is verbal language or speaking besides mind to think. Humans can communicate with others through verbal language, either to apply or to receive the information the animal can’t do. When we observe a child acquiring first speech; we talk about a matter of learning new words or new vocabulary.

Studying a language cannot be separated from studying vocabulary because vocabulary is one of the components of a language, besides sound system, grammar, and culture. We know that words support the speakers in communication to express their ideas. For instance, if someone wants to say something, he/she should know and choose the appropriate words to express his/her ideas, so that people can understand.

               It is true that the vocabulary is the focus of language. It is in words that sounds and meaning interlock to allow us to communicate with one another, and it is a word that we arrange together to make sentences, conversations, and discourse of all kinds.

Vocabulary plays an important role because it appears in every language skills. Vocabulary building is really important in any language learning. We realizes how important the mastery of vocabulary is, particularly for people who study English as a foreign Language as stated in the Collier- Macmillan International (2000: 72) once a student has mastered the fundamental grammatical patterns of a language, his next task is to master its vocabulary that he needs. Nobody ever learns all the words in any language. We know and use the words that suit with our particular purposes and we continue to learn new words as long as we live.

The Definition of Vocabulary

Charles (1971: 71) states that vocabulary is a stock or supply of words that a person uses or understands even if he does not use them in oral or written communication.

Hatch and Brown (1975: 68) state that vocabulary is a list or set of words for a particular language or a set of word that individual speakers of language might use.

Stahl (2005: 15) states that vocabulary is the knowledge of words and word meanings.

Preece (1936: 1655) claims that vocabulary is a list of words with their meanings, glossary, some of words used in a language or particular books or a branch of science.

Lado (1977: 182) states that vocabulary is words as units that were part of grammatical patterns. In that sense, a word could be an element which can stand alone as an utterance, it cannot be divided into two or more part.

Harimurti Kridalaksana (1993: 127) states that vocabulary is a component of language that maintains all of information about meaning and using word in language.

Nation (1990: 20) states that vocabulary is "all the words known and used by a particular person.  Knowing a word is knowing spelling and pronunciation.

Based on the theories above, it can be concluded that vocabulary is a lists of words with their meanings, spellings, pronunciations, and uses.

        Aspects of Vocabulary

The Importance of Vocabulary

Margaret and Isabel (2002: 1) state that vocabulary plays in people’s lives and future possibilities. It is clear that a large and rich vocabulary is the hallmark of an educated individual. Indeed, a large vocabulary repertoire facilitates becoming an educated person to the extent that vocabulary knowledge is strongly related to all skill proficiency in particular and school achievement in general.

Nation (1997: 6) states “Vocabulary knowledge enables language use, language use enables the increase of vocabulary knowledge, knowledge of the world enables the increase of vocabulary knowledge and language use and so on”

Edward (1995: 12) states that vocabulary is one of the important factors in all language teaching. Student must continually be learning words as they learn structure and as they practice sound system. ” Without grammar very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed.” This is how the linguist, Wilkins summed up the importance of vocabulary learning. He said that ‘If you spend most of your time studying grammar, your English won’t improve very much. You will see most improvement if you learn more words and expressions. You can say very little with grammar but you can say almost anything with words.’ Harmer said “If language structures make up the skeleton of language, then it is vocabulary that provides the vital organs and the flesh” (1993: 153).

Chall (1983: 1) states that weak vocabulary is causing our students’ comprehension to suffer, and difficulties in comprehension are causing their vocabularies to remain weak. The more words you know, the more you will be able to understand what you hear and read; and the better you will be able to say what you want to when speaking or writing.

Especially for beginners, vocabulary mastery is the very basic knowledge to learn more about English. Zimmerman (1997: 17) states that for young learners, vocabulary is central to language and words are of the critical importance to language learning. It cannot be separated from the other language elements in the teaching and learning process because it influences the students’ ability and learning English.

 It is the experience of most language teachers that the single, biggest component of any language course is vocabulary. No matter how well the student learns grammar, no matter how successfully the sounds of a foreign language are mastered, without words to express a wide range of meanings, communication in a foreign language just cannot happen in any meaningful way (McCarthy, 1990: viii). Carlisle (1990: 72) says that helping children learn about words is one way to build linguistic awareness, which in turn fosters both language learning and literacy development.

Types of Vocabulary

Nation (1997: 17) has divided vocabulary in the specific reference, such a word. They are receptive vocabulary and productive vocabulary. Receptive Vocabulary: knowing a word involves being able to recognize it when it is heard (What is the sound like?) or when it is seen (What does it look like?) and having an expectation of what grammatical pattern the word will occur. This includes being able to distinguish it from word with a similar form and being able to judge if the word form sounds right or look right.

Productive Vocabulary: knowing a word involves being able to pronounce the word, how to write and to spell it, how to use it in grammatical pattern along with the word usually collocates with it, it also involves not using the word too often if it is typically a low frequency word and using it in a suitable situation using the word to stand for the meaning it represents and being able to think of suitable substitutes for the word.

 Ann and Field (2002: 24) classify Vocabulary into two terms. They are active vocabulary and passive vocabulary. Active vocabulary refers to items the learner can use appropriately in speaking or writing and it is also called as productive vocabulary, although, in fact, it is more difficult to put into practice. It means that to use the productive vocabulary, the students are supposed to know how to pronounce it well, they must know and be able to use grammar of the target language, they are also hoped to be familiar with collocation and understand the connotation meaning of the words. This type is often used in speaking and writing skill.

 Passive vocabulary refers to a language items that can be recognized and understood in the context of reading or listening and also called as receptive vocabulary. Passive vocabulary or comprehension consists of words comprehended by the people, when they read and listen. From the explanations above, we know that every expert in every book has different way in classifying the kinds of vocabulary, because every person has different ways in showing and telling their opinions and ideas.