Abstract:

This paper introduces an experimental study performed among a group of university students of Business English to promote lexical learning in this field. As lexis is one of the key areas of this discipline (Pickett, 1989) and students usually struggle with business terms, our experimental research was also aimed at examining the most effective approach to vocabulary acquisition.
Bearing this educational purpose in mind, first, we tested the hypothesized advantage of designing specific computerised materials following a cognitive-based viewpoint. Secondly, we assessed the relevance of syntagmatic relations in the structure of the L2 mental lexicon (Nation, 2001; Wolter, 2006). That being the case, acquiring lexical collocations would prove to be a more effective and lasting knowledge than learning isolated items.
The evidence supports the first hypothesis, since all students improved extensively their lexical ability. In relation to the second thesis, the results were inconclusive. It was found out that collocational lexical acquisition ranked higher than acquisition of isolated terms, but not all learners followed this pattern. Nevertheless, the deviation was not constant enough to rule out our assumption. This tentative finding, then, should be committed to further experimentation because the results can improve our teaching practice. In other words, if we are not wrong and collocational lexical acquisition proves to be more effective then, a substantial re-examination of our current methods for teaching vocabulary would be in order.

Keywords:

Vocabulary acquisition, lexical collocations, Business English, business lexis.