AbstractStudies of the vocabulary size needed to be a proficient second-language reader
commonly arrive at numbers that are staggering. The figures most often cited
are between 8,000 and 9,000 words, as required for reading novels and newspaper
articles with sufficient ease and understanding (Nation, 2006). To date,
almost all of the empirical research on reading proficiency and vocabulary size
has focused on English, but two recent studies (Hacking & Tschirner, 2017;
Hacking,
Tschirner, & Rubio, in press) reported lexical minimums associated
with particular American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages
(ACTFL) reading proficiency levels. This chapter builds on these data and examines
the relationship between the reading proficiency and vocabulary knowledge
of L2 learners of German, Russian, and Spanish. It addresses the following
research questions: (1) How well does reading proficiency as defined by ACTFL
predict vocabulary size measured as the receptive knowledge of various bands
of the most frequent 5,000 words in German, Russian, and Spanish? (2) What
vocabulary sizes are predicted by ACTFL reading proficiency levels? (3) Do
German, Russian, and Spanish differ with respect to the relationship between
reading proficiency and vocabulary size? This chapter will also focus on some
implications for curriculum development.
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