Individual Vocabulary and Semantic Currency: A Preliminary Study

A vocabulary test, whose items are chosen by random sampling of a large dictionary and which can therefore afford estimates of vocabulary on an absolute basis, is described and the data obtained on a group of 40 subjects are reported. The test is shown to have a high reliability as assessed by a split‐half criterion. Its application to the study of ‘semantic currency’—the diffusion of knowledge of word‐meanings‐in a social group is illustrated, and some implications for the analysis of some aspects of the cultural structure in a community are discussed. The possibility of deriving a short test capable of rapid and wide application is considered.