Academic Vocabulary and Grammar

Academic Word Lists

StructureStructure

1. Academic Word List (AWL)

1.1 Definition

1.2 The Lists

1.3 The Purpose of AWL

1.4 Some Examples for AWL

1.5 Occurrence and Usage of AWL

2. General Service List (GSL)

2.1 Definition

2.3 The Revised List

3. University Word List (UWL)

4. Sources

2

11. Academic Word List . Academic Word List (( AWL) AWL)

1.1 Definition1.1 Definition

Was acquired in 2000 by Averil Coxhead

One of several vocabulary lists

The list includes 570 word families

The word families are classified into 10 SUBLISTS, which reflect word frequency and range

It does not contain the approximately 2000 English words, which are used the most

3

The AWL was developed in the first place, to be used by teachers or students on an academic level

It is useful/recommended for second-language learners, who want to study at an English-speaking institution

To find out about what words should be included in the AWL, an analysis of academic journals, textbooks, course wordbooks, lab manuals and course notes was necessary

The list, which appeared after the analysis, contained about 3,5 million words

4

1.2 The Lists1.2 The Lists

The 570 word families are classifies into 10 SUBLISTS

Those SUBLISTS are arranged by frequency

SUBLIST 1 contains the most frequent words (= ‘analyze’), SUBLIST 10 the words, which are used the least frequent (= ‘adjacent’)

SUBLIST 1 contains the 60 most common words in AWL

SUBLIST 2 the next 60 …

Each SUBLIST consists of 60 word families, except SUBLIST 10, which involves only 30

5

ExamplesExamples

SUBLIST 1 with the most frequent words:

SUBLIST 10 with the less frequent words:

Area Factor

Benefit Issue

Define Research

Environment Vary

Adjacent Notwithstanding

Forthcoming Panel

Integrity Persistent

Levy So-called

6

1.3 The Purpose of AWL1.3 The Purpose of AWL

The words of the AWL are important for students, who plan to study at an English-speaking college or university

The words of AWL often appear in newspapers, magazines, novels, …

The AWL is very useful to improve vocabulary skills

Students get a much better understanding of the range and meaning of vocabulary

AWL is also very important, to see the different derivations of the word families ( verb, noun, adjective, adverb)

7

1.4 1.4 Some Examples for AWLSome Examples for AWL

http://web.uvic.ca/~gluton/awl/id17.htm

The word families for each SUBLIST are divided into six groups

There are three exercises for each word family

Many of the exercises include different derivations for the respective word

Each level should be finished before moving on to the next

8

http://www.vuw.ac.nz/lals/research/awl/headwords.html & http://www.vuw.ac.nz/lals/research/awl/sublists.html

The headwords of the AWL are the stem for the words

The number after each headword is the SUBLIST, the word family is in

The SUBLISTS contain the word families, the word, which is used the most appears in Italics

9

1.5 Occurrence and Usage of AWL1.5 Occurrence and Usage of AWL

The occurrences of AWL within the whole Academic Corpus and the number of pages a student needs to read, to encounter the words

AWL SUBLIST Coverage of Academic Corpus (%)

Pages per Repetition in the Academic Corpus

1 (60 families) 3,6 % 4

2 (60 families) 1,8 % 8

3 (60 families) 1,2 % 12

4 (60 families) 0.9 % 15

5 (60 families) 0,8 % 19

6 (60 families) 0,6 % 24

7 (60 families) 0,5 % 30

8 (60 families) 0,3 % 49

9 (60 families) 0,2 % 67

10 (30 families) 0,1 % 8210

The Burns and Mitchell technique of dating business cycles relied primarily on two sorts of information: the descriptive evidence from business publications and general business conditions indices, and the "specific cycles" found in many individual series and the tendency for turning points to sometimes cluster at certain dates.  Based on this information, a set of reference cycle dates were selected that specified the turning points in "aggregate economic activity".  A key feature of the Burns and Mitchell approach was to focus on the amount of cyclical co-movement or coherence among a large number of economic variables.  This co-movement is the prime characteristic of their definition of the business cycle:  "...a cycle consists of expansions occurring at about the same time in many economic activities, followed by similarly general recessions, contractions, and revivals which merge into the expansion phase of the next cycle;...in duration business cycles vary from more than one year to ten or twelve years..." (Burns and Mitchell, 1946, p 3).

11

How to use the words in the AWLHow to use the words in the AWL

Students should read academic texts and listen to academic lectures and discussions

Students should have the possibility to speak in academic discussions and write academic texts, in which they use the academic vocabulary

Students should directly use and learn words from the lists they should learn them like normal vocabulary for any language, besides that they should also read academic texts

12

Example of how to study the words of the AWLExample of how to study the words of the AWL

1. Search for an interesting text

2. Comprehension of the text

3. Search and selection for the academic words in the text

“The plans include planting trees and hedges to protect crops from grazing animals and wind erosion.”

Understanding of the meaning

“It's necessary to protect crops from erosion, so erosion has a negative meaning.”

Contemplation of the other words it is used with

„Erosion“ used in the phrase „wind erosion“

Contemplation of the grammar of the word

„erosion” used as singular, no article, “erosion” is an uncountable noun

4. For more information of the word, a dictionary should be used

5. If the use of the academic word is understood, an own sentence should

be created

2. General Service List 2. General Service List (( GSL) GSL)

2.1 Definition2.1 Definition

GSL provides basic vocabulary of English in order of frequency

It was first created in 1953, by West

List was a set of 2000 selected words for people, who wanted to study English

Words were selected by frequency

This GSL was configured by headwords, which represented a word family

Every headword was in alphabetical order, besides that it appeared with „brief definitions and example sentences“

Each word came with a number, which represented the occurrence per 5 million words as well as with a percentage number for each meaning

The words were graded by their frequency numbers

The list has been used for several decades, but nowadays it is rather out of date

Problems, which make it hard to use the list nowadaysProblems, which make it hard to use the list nowadays

It was problematic to discover, how many words this GSL contained

For example, the word EFFECT was followed by a set of words: effective, effectively, efficient, efficiency, efficiently

Also the transcription of the words was interminable

It was hard to state, whether the frequency numbers should be added to the headwords before or after the ranking of the words

Another problem was the written material, from which the frequencies were taken 1938 and 1949

2.2 The Revised List2.2 The Revised List

http://jbauman.com/gsl.html & http://www.auburn.edu/~nunnath/engl6240/wlistgen.html

List was created by Baumann and Culligan in 1995

It is ranked by frequency order

To establish the number of frequencies, the Brown Corpus was used

This GSL provides 2284 words

The list contains all headwords and derived forms from the original GSL

The headwords are classified into word families, which are based on levels 1 to 4 and ranked according to the frequency numbers

The list appears with rank number, frequency number and the word

GSL with SUBLISTS can be found on:http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/~alzsh3/acvocab/wordlists.htm

The knowledge of the GSL and the AWL will increase the understanding of academic texts extensively

3. University Word List 3. University Word List (( UWL) UWL)

Published in 1984

It contains vocabulary, which is common in academic texts

It contains about 808 words that are divided into 11 levels

The UWL was established for students, who have a basic knowledge of English and who planned to study at an English speaking university or college

The UWL is linked to the GSL

The configuration of the list is similar to the AWL

The UWL is divided into 11 levels, which include the words in alphabetical order

Level 1 to 3 have the highest frequency

Since 2000, the AWL replaces the UWL

The UWL can be found on: http://jbauman.com/UWL.html

4. Sources4. Sources

http://jbauman.com/gsl.html http://jbauman.com/UWL.html http://web.uvic.ca/~gluton/awl/ http://web.uvic.ca/~gluton/awl/id17.htm http://www.auburn.edu/~nunnath/engl6240/wlistgen.html http://www.logixlab.com/wordlist.htm http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/~alzsh3/acvocab/ http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/~alzsh3/acvocab/exercises.htm http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/~alzsh3/acvocab/learning.htm http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/~alzsh3/acvocab/wordlists.htm http://www.uni-trier.de/uni/fb2/anglistik/Projekte/stubbs/awl.htm http://www.vuw.ac.nz/lals/research/awl/info.html http://www.vuw.ac.nz/lals/research/awl/sublists.html

EndEnd