The article is a case study of one learner's use of lexical innovation. She is a university-level ab initio learner of German, and a subject in the Trinity College, Dublin, Modern Languages Research Project. In the target language production tasks performed over a two-year period, she exhibits a particular tendency towards lexical innovation as a strategy to cope with lack of TL lexical knowledge. From her introspective reports there is evidence to suggest that this type of strategic behaviour is related to her conscious approach towards vocabulary learning.
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