This question was closed without grading. Reason: Answer found elsewhere
Nov 23, 2014 07:22
9 yrs ago
3 viewers *
Spanish term

volumen léxico

Spanish to English Social Sciences Psychology
I am wondering if there are any experts out there. This is from a study on lexical acquisition in late talkers and typically developing children. In the key words from the abstract the autor has translated "volumen léxico" as "lexical growth"but I am far from sure it's the right term. It occurs a few times during the article:

2. Los niños/as con mayor número de palabras a los 24 meses presentarán un incremento mayor de palabras a los 30 meses; es decir, su ritmo de adquisición será mayor a lo largo del seguimiento y a la inversa, los niños con menor número de palabras a los 24 meses tendrán un incremento menor en su ***volumen léxico*** 6 meses después.

Este resultado es coherente con otros observados anteriormente (Heilman y cols., 2005; Huttenlocher, Haight, Bryck, Seltzer, y Lyons, 1991; Jackson Maldonado, Peña y Aghara ,2009; Le Normand, Parisse y Cohen 2008 y Mariscal y cols., 2007) en los que se informa precisamente que las niñas de dos años presentan un mayor ***volumen léxico*** que los niños.

Por último, respecto del conjunto de niños, los datos muestran que los niños de los cuartiles centrales evolucionan en ***volumen léxico*** más que los niños que ocupan los otros cuartiles. (the data in this case is the amount of words parents report their children producing at 24 and 30 months)

It seems to me that it as it apparently refers to the number of words they produce, the correct term should be "vocabulary size", which anyway seems to be much closer to "volumen léxico" than" lexical growth".
Proposed translations (English)
3 +2 lexicon
5 vocabulary
3 +1 lexical volume

Discussion

peter jackson (asker) Nov 24, 2014:
@Neil Obviously I can see the link but am just not sure if "lexical volume" is the usual term for my context. I'm not sure what your "go figure" comment is supposed to mean ....... seems a little unnecessary. BTW "produce" is the expression used in the articles on chidlren's L1 language cited in my source text so would not seem to have fallen out of favour.
peter jackson (asker) Nov 23, 2014:
@Simon And the same is true also for vocabulary size .... but I think I will have to use it since Rescorla et al. seem to be fairly big shots in the child language acquisition world!
Simon Bruni Nov 23, 2014:
But you wouldn't say a child has a "lexicon size of 16 words". You'd say the child has a lexicon of 16 words. I don't see the point in using two words where one suffices.
peter jackson (asker) Nov 23, 2014:
Thanks for your help. I have located an article cited in my text which includes various examples of "vocabulary size" and one of "lexicon size" and here they are used as synonyms: Intake expressive vocabulary size as reported by their mothers on the language development survey (LDS) was 16 words, about one-tenth of the lexicon size of normally developing toddlers.
So I seem to have answered my own question ...

Proposed translations

+2
41 mins

lexicon

In linguistics the term for the body of words known by an individual is "lexicon".

lexicon
■ noun
the vocabulary of a person, language, or branch of knowledge.
Peer comment(s):

agree Chris Maddux : "the amount of" lexicon is much more than....
2 hrs
agree philgoddard : But you can't say "amount of lexicon".
7 hrs
Something went wrong...
+1
22 mins

lexical volume

It may be that the author has adopted the term (whether this is appropriate or not is moot) to describe the number of words at their command (AFAIK "produce" fell out of favour in the 80s), based on expressions found in general grammar texts like this:

"According to the requirement of the teaching and the need of the learning, this series of grammar textbooks are divided into lexical volume and syntax volume.


--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 23 mins (2014-11-23 07:45:44 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

There should be no problem using the term if you define it clearly first...

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 1 day37 mins (2014-11-24 08:00:33 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

AKA "volume of lexis."
https://www.google.com/search?q="volume of lexis"&oq=&gs_l=
Note from asker:
I had thought of this but found it used much more in second language learning contexts than in children's language acquisition. Googling "lexical volume" "24 months" you get very few hits ....
Peer comment(s):

agree philgoddard : This is fine too.
8 hrs
Thanks, although the asker doesn't seem to see the link between 2nd language acquisition and "language learning contexts". Go figure...
Something went wrong...
1 day 1 hr

vocabulary

Vocabulary- word acquisition. I have read your context and I think is more appropriate to use this word because little children learn words and form a vocabulary.
Something went wrong...

Reference comments

2 hrs
Reference:

lexicon

the vocabulary of a particular language,field, social class, person, etc.

A common term used in Linguistics.
Something went wrong...
Term search
  • All of ProZ.com
  • Term search
  • Jobs
  • Forums
  • Multiple search