Depth and breadth of vocabulary in two languages: Which vocabulary skills transfer?

Abstract

In this study, the authors examined the relationship between paradigmatic and syntagmatic word knowledge. The authors used familiar concrete nouns administered in Spanish and English to 88 bilingual 4th and 5th graders. Students were tested on the ability to provide superordinates, communicatively adequate definitions, and rich object descriptions. Producing superordinates in Spanish was a reliable predictor of the same skill in English, while controlling for breadth of vocabulary knowledge in each language. The relationship between communicative skills in Spanish and English was evident only when English and Spanish breadth of vocabulary knowledge were controlled. Communicative adequacy of definitions and rich descriptions of concrete nouns depended more on specific vocabulary knowledge in English than on transfer.