diff --git a/src/lightning/pytorch/demos/transformer.py b/src/lightning/pytorch/demos/transformer.py
index 6c2ad6defc..6a389fe008 100644
--- a/src/lightning/pytorch/demos/transformer.py
+++ b/src/lightning/pytorch/demos/transformer.py
@@ -26,7 +26,13 @@ if hasattr(MultiheadAttention, "_reset_parameters") and not hasattr(MultiheadAtt
 
 class Transformer(nn.Module):
     def __init__(
-        self, vocab_size: int, ninp: int = 200, nhead: int = 2, nhid: int = 200, nlayers: int = 2, dropout: float = 0.2
+        self,
+        vocab_size: int = 33278,  # default for WikiText2
+        ninp: int = 200,
+        nhead: int = 2,
+        nhid: int = 200,
+        nlayers: int = 2,
+        dropout: float = 0.2,
     ) -> None:
         super().__init__()
         self.pos_encoder = PositionalEncoding(ninp, dropout)