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The acquisition of polysemous words in a foreign language epitomizes the retention and representation of linguistic knowledge as well as its developmental dynamics. In this study, Korean high school students were asked to carry out two types of English vocabulary tasks: a word-in-isolation task and a word-in-context task. Each task was made up of three sets of polysemous words selected from 1000-, 2000-, and 3000-level frequency words, respectively. In addition, the students’ strategies for learning and determining the meanings of polysemous words were assessed through written questionnaires and class discussion. Overall, the students showed a higher rate of acquisition when measured by the word-in-context task than the word-in-isolation task, and they had greater difficulty identifying the meaning of less frequent polysemous words. Students relied more on memorized meanings when dealing with high-frequency polysems. When words were presented in isolation, the meanings of more frequent polysems were better recalled than less frequent ones. When words were presented in context, however, frequency was not proportionate to knowledge. All these observations suggest that differences in L2 learners’ knowledge of polysemous words lie not only in how many individual meanings they have memorized but in how well they make use of contextual cues and that as the learners’ reading proficiency develops, their vocabulary knowledge becomes contextualized to a greater extent. (Chonnam National University)