Exploring lexical diversity in second language Spanish

This chapter explores issues related to the modeling and measurement of lexical diversity in the language use of foreign language (L2) classroom learners. It provides a brief but informative overview of the field's historical and current understanding of the relationship between lexical production, on the one hand, and vocabulary knowledge, language proficiency, and writing quality, on the other. Special attention has been given to measures of lexical diversity, which have often been found to be the strongest lexical predictors of language abilities. Studies investigating lexical diversity in L2 Spanish are rare, and for this reason the chapter presents the results of analysis of lexical diversity found in two different types of essays written by L2 Spanish learners at multiple levels of proficiency in an American university.