Second Language Learning and Language Teaching

Superordinate terms
furniture
bird
fruit
Basic-level terms
table, chair
sparrow, robin
apple, strawberry
Subordinate terms
coffee table, 
field sparrow
Golden Delicious, wild
armchair
strawberry
Table 3.2 Three levels of vocabulary
L1 children learn basic-level terms like ‘apple’ before they learn the superordi-
nate term ‘fruit’ or the subordinate term ‘Golden Delicious’. They start with the
most basic level as it is easiest for the mind to perceive. Only after this has been
learnt do they go on to words that are more general or more specific. Some of my
own research (Cook, 1982) showed that L2 learners first of all acquire basic terms
such as ‘table’, second, more general terms like ‘furniture’, and finally, more spe-
cific terms like ‘coffee table’. Rosch’s levels are therefore important to L2 learning
as well as to first language acquisition.
This sequence of levels, however, is different from the usual order of presentation
in language teaching in which the teacher introduces a whole group of words simul-
taneously. For example, in Unit 4 of New English File (Oxenden et al., 2004: 48), the
heading ‘clothes’ is followed by the instructions ‘Match the words and pictures’,
with drawings of a jacket, jeans, and so on. According to prototype theory, this is
misguided; the superordinate term ‘clothes’ should come after the students have the
basic-level terms such as ‘jacket’ and ‘jeans’, not before.

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The most important early words are basic-level terms. The human mind auto-
matically starts from this concrete level rather than from a more abstract level or
a more specific one. Starting with vocabulary items that can be shown easily in
pictures fits in with the Rosch theory; grouping them prematurely into superordi-
nate categories does not. A drawing can be readily recognized as a chair but is less
easy to see as an armchair or as furniture. Hence prototype theory ties in with the
audio-visual method of language teaching that introduces new vocabulary with a
picture of what it represents, in an appropriate cultural setting. This theory has