Leksikaalinen kompetenssi osana kielitaitoa
Lexical competence as a component of language proficiency

Summary/Abstract: Lexical competence is an important part of language proficiency, although it does not always receive as much attention as communicative competence. One reason for this is that the terminology connected with vocabulary research has not been defined unambiguously, and therefore it is sometimes dificult to compare research done in this area. According to the most common view, lexical competence consists of two dimensions: the breadth and the depth of vocabulary. The easiest way to distinguish these terms is to say that the breadth of vocabulary refers to the number of words a language learner knows, whereas the depth of vocabulary indicates how well he/she knows them. It is not surprising that although it is very dificult to estimate how many words a language learner knows, the concept of vocabulary breadth is nevertheless relatively straightforward. The depth of vocabulary, on the other hand, is much more problematic, both in theory and in practice. In this situation, where researchers tend to pay less attention to lexical competence, communicative competence has in many instances became almost a synonym for L2-competence. This can also be seen in language testing in Finland, where separate vocabulary testing receives very little attention in the “Finnish as a second language”-test in the Matriculation Examination and where the vocabulary subtest was completely removed from the National Certificates of Language Proficiency (YKI) as from December 1, 2011. Although no one will deny the fact that communicative competence cannot exist without lexical competence, one may with good cause ask what kind of signal these tests give regarding the importance of vocabulary especially to language teachers and learners.

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