Breadth and depth of vocabulary in relation to L1/L2 acquisition and frequency of input

TLDR

The study investigates how breadth and depth of vocabulary relate to language acquisition and input frequency. The authors assessed 50 Dutch kindergartners and 1,600 Dutch children aged 4–7 using receptive, descriptive, and associative vocabulary tasks to examine how word knowledge breadth, depth, and probability relate to input frequency. The results showed no conceptual difference between breadth and depth of vocabulary, with both dimensions influenced similarly in monolingual and bilingual children, and a strong correlation between word knowledge probability and input frequency across groups.

Abstract

Two empirical studies set out to explore the relation between breadth and depth of word knowledge and to link these concepts with language acquisition and frequency of language input. In the first study, the breadth and depth of word knowledge of 50 Dutch monolingual and bilingual kindergartners were investigated using receptive vocabulary, description, and association tasks. The second study examined the relation between the probability of knowing a word and the input frequency of that word in 1,600 Dutch monolingual and bilingual 4- and 7-year-olds. These studies found that there was no conceptual distinction between breadth and depth of vocabulary, and that breadth and depth were affected by the same factors for both monolingual and bilingual speakers. Very high correlations were found between monolingual and bilingual speakers with respect to the probability of knowing a word, which was strongly related to the input frequency in primary education.