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This paper explores two fundamental issues concerning the inter-textual vocabulary growth patterns for Marine Engineering English, viz. vocabulary growth models and newly occurring vocabulary distributions in cumulative texts. On the basis of the DMMEE （Dalian Maritime University Marine Engineering English） corpus, four mathematical models （Brunet＇s, Guiraud＇s, Tuldava＇s, and Herdan＇s models） are tested against the empirical vocabulary growth curve for Marine Engineering English. A new growth model based on the logarithmic function and the power law is presented. The theoretical mean vocabulary size and the 95% upper and lower bound values are calculated and plotted as functions of the sample size. Being significant in explicit EFL teaching and learning, the new growth model can make accurate estimates not only on the vocabulary size and its intervals for a given textbook but also on the volume of texts that are needed to produce a particular vocabulary size.