Appropriateness as an aspect of lexical richness: What do quantitative measures tell us about children's writing?

Quantitative measures of vocabulary use have added much to our understanding first and second language writing development. This paper argues for register appropriateness as a useful addition these tools. Developing an idea proposed by Durrant Brenchley (2019), it explores what such can tell us about development in the L1 school children England critically examines how results should be interpreted. It shows that significant patterns discipline- genre-specific identified related four distinct registers, though strongest are found associated with fiction academic writing. Follow-up analyses showed changes across year groups were primarily driven, not nature individual words, but overall quantitative distribution register-specific vocabulary, suggesting traditional distinction between lexical diversity sophistication may helpful this context. Closer analysis vocabularies Science English response sharply differing communicative needs those disciplines, children’s seen single coherent process.