Lexical frequency profiles, lexical development and writing quality

Lexical Frequency Profiles, Lexical Development and Writing Quality. The usefulness of Lexical Frequency Profiles (LFP) as instruments for assessing vocabulary proficiency has been well documented (Laufer and Nation, 1995; Laufer, 1998; Laufer and Paribakht, 1998; Morris and Cobb, 2004; Crossley et al., 2013). The potential of the LFP to measure vocabulary growth, another use suggested by Laufer and Nation (1995), has received much less attention. The negative results of Laufer (1998) showing that students at a higher level did not demonstrate significant gains may have discouraged researchers from further exploring this avenue. However, it could be argued that Laufer’s design, using two populations at different stages within the same study programme, may have influenced her results. In a more recent study, Daller et al (2013) did conduct a longitudinal study following 42 EFL students at beginner’s level over an 80-week period, and found evidence of changing LFPs. However, the writing products were highly varied, ranging from descriptions over stories to opinion texts, on different topics, so that task influence cannot be discounted. Meanwhile, the LFP has also undergone an evolution, and there are now different versions available (GSL+AWL, BNC+COCA and Common Core). The present study investigates whether the LFP can be used to chart progress in vocabulary use of students at an upper intermediate level, while at the same time comparing the different versions of the LFP. Students wrote three ‘pros and cons’ essays (i.e. the same text type) on different topics (stable according to Laufer and Nation, 1995), over a period of 6 months during their first year of studying English in higher education. Each essay was analyzed using the different versions of the LFP and the different ways of reading the LFP suggested by previous researchers. Vocabulary levels tests were used as an independent measure. Preliminary analyses show a change in the use of academic vocabulary.status: publishe