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UK Teens: Active vocabularly of 800 words | ||
Tags: Teenagers | Vocabulary learning | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5669 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes  Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin | Message 1 of 94 11 January 2010 at 12:47pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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UK teenagers have an active vocabulary of 800 words (and a passive vocabulary of up to 40,000 words): Teenspeak Edited by Splog on 11 January 2010 at 12:47pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6272 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 2 of 94 11 January 2010 at 2:43pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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I reckon most people have an active vocabulary of no more than 2,000 words or so, in any language. For many teenagers, there are peer pressures to use jargon and not appear bookish or pompous. What the problem is here is teenagers unable to adapt to a different environment that requires a larger vocabulary.
An example of someone able to vary their vocabulary to best advantage is Renton in the film Trainspotting. When he appears before a magistrate after being caught stealing to fund his heroin habit, he tells the magistrate, "With God's help I will overcome this terrible affliction." This is much loftier than his usual way of speaking, but it seems to have the appropriate effect. Being able to vary your vocabulary and style of speech is, I think, a matter of intelligence. Perhaps many of the teenagers described are not very smart. 6 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| numerodix Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 6783 days ago 856 posts - 1226 votes Speaks: EnglishC2*, Norwegian*, Polish*, Italian, Dutch, French Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 3 of 94 11 January 2010 at 3:14pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Perhaps, but you gotta figure language is a product of the environment. They're not able to vary their language because the environment doesn't get them to practice this. I guess they get by with the same language everywhere, and so it's the path of least resistance. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Muz9 Diglot Groupie Netherlands Joined 5524 days ago 84 posts - 112 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Somali | Message 4 of 94 11 January 2010 at 5:35pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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How large is the vocabulary of the average English speaker?
40,000 passive words for teenagers seems rather high, I doubt regular 16 year olds know that many words in the 25k to 40k frequency category. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| datsunking1 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5585 days ago 1014 posts - 1533 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, Russian, Dutch, French | Message 5 of 94 11 January 2010 at 6:14pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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I agree. 40k for teenagers seem very high... 800 active words is a disgrace in my opinion. I think jargon, texting, and chatroom speak is to blame. As a teen myself I can see how it's destroying modern language :D I love the way Professor Arguelles speaks, his vocabulary and speaking skill is very high end and he comes across as very knowledgable and intelligent. Honestly, I think proper grammar is more important than vocabulary... what's the point of knowing a word if you cannot use it correctly? I hear people say all the time:
"What is your plans" = What ARE your plans? "Where you going?" Where ARE you going? "I've got 20 dollars" = I HAVE $20 dollars. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| wildweathel Newbie United States Joined 5563 days ago 32 posts - 71 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Esperanto, Japanese | Message 6 of 94 11 January 2010 at 7:25pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
That article is linguistically illiterate.
Spoken language contains a surprising amount of filler? Congradulations on that revolutionary discovery.
"Active vocabulary" is not the same as "vocabulary that is used daily." Just because a speaker doesn't say something every day doesn't mean that he can't when the need arises. For example, I don't say things like "Mrs. Gross is an intolerant pedant," every day. However, it certainly came to mind naturally enough. This is a good example of why real scientists use control groups.
Well, if that's her fear, why doesn't she study that? Some people actually speak entirely different languages with their friends than they do at work. Even granting that "teenspeak" really is inferior to adult speech, that says as much about their ability to make a good impression at a job interview as their ability to write like Shakespeare. Would it have been too expensive to actually interview teens in a fairly formal setting? Or is there something else going on? As always, follow the money:
Some big business feels that the children don't meet its standards of 'quality,' so it sponsors some "scientific" (not really) study to push some plan to fix what's essentially a problem with the 'supply chain.' Makes me sick. It's only been happening since the industrial revolution. SSDD. 10 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5669 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin | Message 7 of 94 11 January 2010 at 7:36pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Using the term "big business" makes is sound a bit like a conspiracy theory to me. All the big honcho at Tesco was saying is that plenty of teenagers have a terrible vocabulary compared to that needed for effective work at his company. Now, we are not talking about rocket scientists, but rather supermarket workers. So, I am sure his expectations are not very high. I am certain that school is far less demanding than when I went to school. I am 44, so that was a while ago. However, we were hit on the hand with sticks if we made mistakes. The short, sharp pain kept us focused and ensured we learned plenty of grammar rules and lots of vocabulary. That rigour and its enforcement have been dropped in UK schools, and hence standards have slipped. As a consequence, you will see far more elderly workers in UK supermarkets than in the past, and a greater number of teenagers who are, in comparison, unemployable. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| cordelia0507 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5838 days ago 1473 posts - 2176 votes Speaks: Swedish* Studies: German, Russian | Message 8 of 94 11 January 2010 at 7:39pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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This is a bit puzzling.
A while back was a thread where Hencke, Russianbear and myself took a test to check the size of our English vocabularies according to our knowledge of certain words in a control group. According to the test I think we all had around 17,000 words in our English vocabularies. In light of that, how can these kids have 40,000 words? The people I just mentioned are all professional and well educated people with international careers. I really doubt there are English kids walking around who have almost twice the vocabulary. Or am I missing something? 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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