مشخصات پژوهش

Lexical competence is widely acknowledged as a core dimension of second language (L2) writing proficiency and plays a determinative role in learners’ ability to express nuanced meanings, organize ideas, and produce academic discourse (Laufer & Nation, 1995; Schmitt, 2010). Two measurable aspects of lexical competence, i.e., lexical diversity and lexical sophistication, have emerged as salient markers of advanced writing ability in applied linguistics research (Crossley, Salsbury, & McNamara, 2010; Kyle & Crossley, 2016). Lexical diversity refers to the range of unique lexical items deployed in a text, while lexical sophistication captures learners’ use of less frequent and more academic-level vocabulary, associated with higher levels of linguistic competence. Despite the centrality of vocabulary for writing proficiency, vocabulary-focused research in EFL contexts — particularly in Iraq — remains underdeveloped. Existing studies in Iraq attest to persistent lexical challenges among university-level EFL learners, including limited lexical knowledge and frequent misuse of lexical combinations (e.g., collocations and synonyms), which undermine text quality (Al-Omairi, 2020; Jasim, 2024; Ahmed & Ja’afar, 2020). For example, research on collocational competence among Iraqi advanced EFL learners documented prevalent misuse of lexical combinations, highlighting lexical constraints in production (Al-Jasim, 2024). Likewise, cross-sectional investigations of Iraqi undergraduate learners’ lexical knowledge reveal uneven progress on both recognition and productive vocabulary, including words from the Academic Word List (AWL), suggesting gaps in academic lexical competence (Ahmed & Ja’afar, 2020). Additionally, studies on vocabulary strategy use indicate that Iraqi EFL learners often demonstrate limited metacognitive engagement with vocabulary learning, further constraining lexical growth (Al-Omairi, 2020). Collectively, these findings signal that lexical development is a core ch