Developing a lexical profiler for spoken French L2 and Italian L2 : The role of frequency, thematic vocabulary and cognates

This study is a follow-up to Lindqvist et al. (to press), where we investigated lexical frequency profiles of learners of French and Italian at different proficiency levels. By analyzing the proportion of low-frequency words used by the learners, we could distinguish proficiency levels that differ significantly at group level and correspond to morphosyntactic proficiency levels. However, some individual results within the groups indicated a need to analyze individual profiles in order to get a better picture of the actual quality of the learner’s vocabulary knowledge. The present study focuses on thematic vocabulary and cognates among the low-frequency words used by learners at different proficiency levels. We suggest that investigating qualitative aspects of learners’ word knowledge is a fruitful complement to traditional lexical profiling analysis. Such a combination can lead to a more complete picture of learners’ lexical profiles. Although we are aware that word frequency is known to be a powerful factor in vocabulary acquisition, our on-going research aims at developing a more general lexical profiler that integrates additional aspects that we have found to be relevant for learnability.