Lexical Facility: Bringing Size and Speed Together

Abstract

This article introduces the lexical facility construct, an approach that characterizes vocabulary size and processing skill dimensions as complementary indices of second language (L2) vocabulary skill that, when combined, provide a more sensitive measure of individual differences in L2 vocabulary skill than vocabulary size alone. Lexical facility is described here as a vocabulary skill construct and a measurement construct. Theoretical and methodological issues arising from the proposal are discussed.