Henriksen (1999) 認為詞彙的知識是從零開始，然後有部分的知識，最終到精熟。這意味著，學習詞彙並不是非有即無，而是一個連結的過程。目前沒有任何證據能夠說一個詞彙是如何經歷這樣的過程。Schmitt (2010) 認為一個詞彙的發展可能是這樣：初始階段(剛開始的幾次接觸)，可能對於形式、意義和詞性有點認識；接著，形式、意義和詞性幾乎達到精熟後，詞語脈絡的知識(contextual word knowledge)也開始發展，但是仍不太熟練；最後，詞語脈絡的知識也都趨於完備，但是仍不到精熟，畢竟母語者也無法宣稱能夠精熟任何詞語的脈絡知識。
這裡的形式、意義、詞性和脈絡知識是對應Nation (1990) 的幾個關於詞語的不同面相。形式包括口語和書面，而脈絡知識則包括搭配(collocation)、風格限制(register constraints)、頻率(frequency)和關聯(associations)。
References
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