VOCABULARY CONSTRAINT ON READING MATERIALS

Abstract

The aim of the study is to identify and describe the vocabulary in reading materials and to seek if the texts are useful for reading skill development. A descriptive qualitative design was applied to obtain the data. Some available computer programs were used to find the description of vocabulary in the texts. It was found that the texts are dominated by low frequency words which compose 16.97% of the words in the texts. In terms of high frequency words occurring in the texts, function words dominate the texts. In the case of word levels, it was found that the texts being used have very limited number of words from GSL (West, 1953). The proportion of the first 1,000 words of GSL only comprises 44.6%. The data also show that the texts contain too large proportion of words which are not in the three levels (the first 2,000 and UWL). These words constitute account for 26.44% of the running words in the texts. It is believed that the constraints are due to the selection of the texts which are made of a series of short-unrelated texts. This kind of text is subject to the accumulation of low frequency words especially those of content words and limited of words from GSL. It could also impede the development of students' reading skills and vocabulary enrichment.

Keywords

• vocabulary
• low frequency words
• high frequency words
• word list
• word level