WeChat ID Shanrenwutaibai Intro 服务基础英语教与学，精研儿童教育，提供与此相关的电脑、手机操作指南。 下文选自上海外语教育出版社引进出版的经典英语教学法著作《词汇：描述、习得与教学》，导读、注释：武太白 导读   上周五的教学法原著选读文章《需要学会多少英语单词，才能在学习中应付裕如？--英语教学法原著选读67》出来后，许多朋友拍手叫好。感谢大家的认可和支持！你们都是好样的！ 当然，大家也提出了新的疑问：文章里说到高频词，那么有没有方便易得的英语高频词列表能共享一下？还有朋友问，上周五文章里反复说到word families，这是个什么概念？ 作为对这两个问题的回应，今天我就选择了同一篇论文里的另外两段，首先解释了什么叫word family，然后罗列了几个比较有名的高频词列表。 什么叫word family？第一段文字里讲得很清楚：包含基础词、词形变化形式及直接派生词在内的一组词。举个例子，conversation，conversations，conversational，这就是一个词族。学术界一般认为词汇量是按照词族来算的，所以认识conversation之后再认识conversational，并不能增加我们的词汇量。如果上述三个词各算一个的话，那我们的词汇量就都要大大增加了。下文朋友们会看到，30000个词元（lemmas，基础词加词形变化形式，如conversation，conversations就是一个lemma，可以认为就是基础词）换算成词族，就只剩下13000个了。 这里需要注意的是，“词形变化形式”仅指符合语法规则的变化形式，如名词复数、动词第三人称单数形式、过去式、过去分词、形容词比较级最高级等，不包括造词法（word formation）里提到的逆向造词（back-formation，如housekeeper得出housekeep这个动词）、词缀法（affixation，如cook—cooker注意这个词不是“做饭的人”而是“灶具、炊具”，lucky—unlucky等）、合成词（compounding，如greenhouse等）之类。 说起高频词汇列表，下文列举了三项，朋友们自己去看，我倒是要提醒大家，其实不必去找这些，两本大名鼎鼎的词典里就有高频词列表与标识： 一是《朗文当代英语词典》，号称所有的词语解释都是用2000个基础词汇写成的，并且还在附录中给出了这2000个基础词汇； 二是《柯林斯COBUILD英语词典》，对所有收入的词都有使用频度星级标注，也即我们查词的时候就能看到这个词究竟是否常用，有多么常用。 按照柯林斯的星级标准，最常用的是五星，以下依次减少。我觉得有这两个标准也就够了。反过来说，即便你们真的把下文的几个高频词列表找来了，真的就能派上多大用场吗？我觉得能不能坚持看完都要打个问号呢。   最后聊聊专有名词算不算词汇量，这是我自己加进去的话题，下面的英文没有。我觉得专有名词肯定算的，尤其是在英语学习的前期。什么叫专有名词？说得严重点，专有名词就是现实世界的缩影，我们学英语，不就是要更好地了解现实世界吗？那么专有名词肯定是算的了。事实上，上周五的选读文章里就有一处不起眼的地方提到了这个问题：   Table 2 Vocabulary size and coverage in novels for teenagers   词汇量 覆盖率 生词出现率 2,000 words 90 1 in every 10 2,000+proper nouns 93.7 1 in every 16 2,600 words 96 1 in every 25 5,000 words 98.5 1 in every 67   从上表可以看出，同样是掌握2000词汇，多掌握一些必须的专有名词，能够使生词的出现率从每10个词一个降低到每16个词一个，也即从三行三个降低到三行两个。不要小看这个小小的变化，这意味着阅读顺畅度和速度的提高，以及生词猜测可能性的加大。总而言之，专有名词是算词汇量的，不能轻易放过。   最后我要说的是，从本期开始，选读文章将不再随附译文，而是在第二天另文专门放出译文，希望朋友们还是挑战一下自己，力争把原文攻克。当然，我会尽可能提供注释，帮助大家弄明白文章都说了些什么。   Two separate studies (Dupuy, 1974; Goulden, Nation and Read, 1990) have looked at the vocabulary of Webster’s Third International Dictionary (1963), the largest non-historical dictionary of English when it was published. When compound words, archaic (too old) words, abbreviations (short forms), proper names, alternative (different) spellings and dialect forms are excluded, and when words are classified into word families consisting of a base word, inflected forms, and transparent derivation, Webster’s Third has a vocabulary of around 54,000 word families. This is a learning goal far beyond the reaches of second language learners, and, as we shall see, most native speakers.   There are many lists of the most frequently occurring (appearing) words in English and a few of the most well-known are described here:   The General Service List (West, 1953)：The GSL contains 2,000 head-words and was developed in the 1940s. The frequency figures for most items are based on a 5,000,000-word written corpus (collection of texts, plural form: corpora). Percentage figures are given for different meanings and parts of speech (词性) of the headword. In spite of its age, some errors, and its solely (only) written base, it still remains the best of the available lists because of its information about the frequency of each word's various meanings, and West’s careful application of criteria (standards for judging) other than frequency and range.   The Teacher’s Word Book of 30,000 Words (Thorndike and Lorge, 1944): This list of 30,000 lemmas, or about 13,000 word families (Goulden, Nation and Read, 1990), is based on a count of an 18,000,000-word written corpus. Its value lies in its size. It is based on a large corpus and contains a large number of words. However, it is old, based on counts done over 60 years ago.   The American Heritage Word Frequency Book (Carroll, Davies and Richman，1971): This comprehensive (all-including) list is based on a corpus of 5,000,000 running words drawn from written texts used in schools in the United States over a range of grades and over a range of subject areas. The main values of the list are its focus on school texts and its listing of range figures, namely the frequency of each word in each of the school grade levels and in each of the subject areas.        The Brown (Francis and Kucera, 1982), LOB and related corpora (plural form of corpus): There are now several 1,000,000-word written corpora, each representing (standing for) a different dialect of English. Some of these feature lemmatized word lists ranked according to frequency. Author requires users to follow Official Account before leaving a comment Write a comment Write a comment Loading Most upvoted comments above Learn about writing a valuable comment Scan QR Code via WeChat to follow Official Account