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Greek vocabulary acquisition using semantic domains
Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, Jun 2003 by Wilson, Mark
1. Vocabulary acquisition through word frequency and cognate groups. Learning Greek vocabulary from a list arranged by word frequency might seem simple at first. But even memorizing the 1,067 Greek words used 10 times or more becomes challenging. For example, in Metzger's volume the category "Words Occurring 81 to 90 Times" begins:41
I follow
I go up
I destroy; middle, I perish
I rule; middle, I begin
each
I cast out
gen. before
still, yet, even
I sit
time, an appointed time, season
Scott organizes his lists somewhat differently; under each frequency heading the Greek vocabulary words are organized under Verbs, Nouns, and Other Words. So the category "Words Occurring 97 to 83 Times" begins:42
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to beget, to bear
to teach
to walk
blood
loaf of bread, food
house, family
in front of, in the opinion of
still, in addition
no one, nothing
The problem with such decontextualized lists is that the mind must shift to a different semantic concept for each lexical entry. While a few students may be able to learn vocabulary without problems from such word lists, most will simply cram to learn the vocabulary words for a test and then promptly forget them.
Cognate word groups are used both by Robinson (by frequency) and Trenchard (by alphabetical order) to organize their vocabulary lists. For example, this is an abbreviated entry from Robinson for a cognate group used 84 times:43
strong
weakness
be weak, be sick
weakness
weak, sick
strengthen
This approach at least has linguistic organization to commend it. However, for beginning and intermediate students, the use of Greek cognate groups is still too "foreign" for the necessary memory associations to be made. Like the word frequency approach, it is also too heavily dependent on rote memorization, which was earlier seen to be "shallow" and of limited usefulness for more complex vocabulary acquisition.
2. Vocabulary acquisition through semantic domains. If students instead utilized a word list that was classified by domains, they would be able to focus on one semantic concept encompassing a group of words. For example, see the following example from domain 1. "Geographical Objects and Features" in subdomain J. "Bodies of Water."
sea, lake (91)
by the sea or lake (1)
between the seas (1)
lake (10)
harbor (2)
open sea (archipelago) (2)
river (17)
carried away by a river (1)
spring (11)
Here students are introduced to nine words with related meanings. This type of word list allows students to use mnemonic qualities of association and concept continuity for a more productive approach to vocabulary acquisition. Four of the words are used 10 or more times. Students also learn four cognate words that, while used infrequently, are easily recognized. The student also learns one low frequency word that has an English cognate. In addition to greater ease of memorization, the semantic domains approach prepares students better for the sight recognition of low frequency words.
Incidental vocabulary acquisition was earlier deemed to be the ideal. Counting is one area in which children soon acquire vocabulary naturally. However, in word frequency lists or cognate word groups the Greek vocabulary of numbers is dissociated from its logical numerical sequence. This is where the semantic domains approach is especially useful. Domain 60 contains all the Greek words related to numbers. In subdomain B are the cardinals (given up to 12):
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