| Vocabulary is central to language and of critical importance to the language learner. Wilkinson (1972) once said," Without grammar, very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary, nothing can be conveyed." McCarthy (1990) claimed that "no matter how well the student learns grammar, no matter how successfully he masters the sounds of a L2, without words to express a wide range of meanings, communication in that language cannot happen in any meaningful way." (Quoted in !r＃ft;fc, 1995). A learner's vocabulary knowledge bears very close relationship with his/ her language abilities. Vocabulary size has always been found to be a good predictor of reading comprehension, and to correlate well with writing quality. Learners themselves associate progress in language learning with an increase in the number of words they know. Investigating the progress of learners' vocabulary size can be of considerable value to language research and pedagogy. However, there are very few quantitative studies where vocabulary size, especially both the passive and active vocabulary size, is measured at different stages of language learning over a long period of time.This thesis introduces Laufer and Nation's theories and methods of vocabulary acquisition, and based on them, investigates 58 English majors' gains in three types of vocabulary knowledge (passive, controlled active and free active) over one year of college instruction in Wuhan University of Technology. It also examines how these aspects of lexical knowledge are related to one another and what changes occur in these relationships after one year. Gains in vocabulary were measured by comparing three groups of college English majors. Relationships among the three areas of knowledge were investigated by comparing them within the same individuals. The data collected is analyzed by the means of SPSS.Three instruments were used to measure three dimensions of the subjects' vocabulary knowledge: (1) The Vocabulary Levels Test (Nation 1983,1990) for passive vocabulary size, (2) the productive version of the levels test (Laufer and Nation, 1998) for controlled active vocabulary size, and (3) The Lexical Frequency Profile (LFP, Laufer and Nation 1995) for lexical richness in free written expression. They were once used for foreign learners of English in New Zealand and Israel byThey were once used for foreign learners of English in New Zealand and Israel by Laufer and Nation, and they have been shown to be reliable and valid measures of lexical use in the experiments. The passive and controlled active vocabulary is distributed on five different frequency levels (the 2,000th, the 3,000th, the University Word List, the 5,000th and the 10,000* leve]). The subjects are required to write an essay with the length of 300 - 350 words to measure the free active vocabulary. This thesis intends to answer the five research questions:1. What developments occur in the three types of vocabulary knowledge (passive, controlled active and free active vocabulary knowledge) over one year of study?2. How are the three types of vocabulary knowledge related to one another in the same individual?3. How do these relationships change after one year of study?4. What may account for the developments and changes?5. What may the suggestions be for vocabulary teaching and learning?The results show that passive vocabulary size progresses very well at the early stages of learning, but not at the later stage; controlled active vocabulary progresses too but less than the passive. The tendency of its growth is non-linear. Free active vocabulary does not progress significantly for all the three groups. Passive and controlled active size scores correlate with each other well. Free active vocabulary, on the other hand, does not correlate with the other two types. The results raise two questions about the nature of vocabulary knowledge and the effect of instruction on vocabulary growth. They are:1. Whether the non-linearity of the development of the vocabulary knowledge of the English majors...
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