GENDER AND PRODUCTIVE VOCABULARY

The studies that have investigated the relationship between gender and vocabulary acquisition in SL or FL learning are not only scarce but also dispersed. Outcomes are inconclusive since some studies reveal fe male superiority (Nyikos, 1990; Scarcella & Zimmerman, 1998), whilst others identify a male advantage (Lin & Wu, 2003; Lynn, Fergusson, & Horwood, 2005). Vocabulary can be classified into two types: receptive and productive. Receptive vocabulary relates to the perception of a linguistic form and the understanding of its meaning in both listening and reading (Meara, 1990). Productive vocabulary, in its turn, concerns the production of words in speaking and writing to convey meaning (Nation, 2001). Two types of productive vocabu lary can be distinguished: controlled and free types. Controlled productive vo cabulary refers to the production of words when they are triggered by a task. As Laufer (1998, p. 257) puts it, it is just to complete the following sentence: “[T] he garden was full of fra—flowers” with the word “fragrant.” On the contrary, free productive vocabulary alludes to the use of words at one’s free will (Laufer & Nation, 1999). This research is dedicated to the study of controlled productive vocabulary, which is what the instrument Productive Vocabulary Levels Test (PVLT) (Laufer & Nation, 1995, 1999) measures, as it will be explained in the methodology. Research on productive vocabulary is necessary to acknowledge the amount of words a learner knows in each educational level and context. Its relationship with gender would allow us to explore gender-based divergences in the acquisition of vocabulary. Therefore, part of this study will be devoted to this issue. Little research has been conducted about productive vocabulary and gen der (see Table 3). Scholars (Harji et al., 2015; Jiménez Catalán & Moreno Espinosa, 2004; Moyo, 2018; Scheepers, 2014) agreed with females as being the ones who had a higher productive vocabulary. They differ in the sample of informants, background, and instruments employed. Jiménez Catalán and Moreno Espinosa (2004), Scheepers (2014), and Harji et al. (2015) focused on Spanish, South African, and Malaysian university students respectively, whilst Moyo’s (2018) sample was composed of South African 6th graders. Another divergence was the instrument employed because all of them made use of the PVLT, except Jiménez Catalán and Moreno Espinosa (2004) who used Lex30. The studies conducted by Moreno Espinosa (2010), Canga Alonso and Arribas García (2014), and Fleckenstein (2018) came to the conclusion that there were no significant differences between males and females in productive vocabulary. Both Canga Alonso and Arribas García (2014) and Fleckenstein (2018) dealt with Spanish and Icelandic 10th graders respectively and em ployed the PVLT to measure their productive vocabulary. However, Moreno Espinosa’s (2010) sample was constituted by Spanish 4th, 5th, and 6th grad ers, and she used the Lex30. On the contrary, Castro García’s (2017) research Gender and Productive Vocabulary Vocabulary plays a crucial role in SLA and FLA (Laufer, 1998; Meara, 1990; Nation, 1990) because knowing the vocabulary of a language, learners would be able to communicate effectively. Consequently, examining learners’ vocabulary size would allow both teachers and researchers to ascertain learn ers’ threshold vocabulary level and whether more instruction is needed so that students can read and comprehend texts (Laufer, 1998). It would also be helpful for learners to know the aspects in which they need to improve to make their learning more successful. revealed that males outperformed females in productive vocabulary. In this case, she investigated 11th graders’ productive vocabulary in Costa Rica using the PVLT.