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Louis Rogers
www.macmillanskillful.com/
OverviewDefining academic vocabulary
The Academic Word List
The Academic Keyword List
Beyond individual words
Vocabulary and reading
Academic vocabularyThere is no exact boundary when defining
academic language; it falls toward one end of a continuum (defined by formality of tone, complexity of content, and degree of impersonality of stance), with informal, casual, conversational language at the other extreme. (Snow, 2010:450)
Academic language is the specialized language, both oral and written, of academic settings that facilitates communication and thinking about disciplinary content. (Nagy and Townsend, 2012:91)
Academic vocabularyLatin and Greek vocabulary
eat/dine, right/correctabstract, analyze, aspect
Morphologically complex wordsPredisposition
Nouns, adjectives and prepositions4:1 Vs. 1:1
(Nagy and Townsend, 2012)
Academic vocabularyGrammatical metaphor, including nominalizationInformational density
ratio of content words to total wordsAbstractness
respiration
Just because people who read more can read better doesn’t mean that if you read more this will make you read better.
The correlation between amount of reading and reading ability does not imply a causal relationship
(Nagy and Townsend, 2012)
The Academic Word List
Academic Word ListThe Academic Word List (Coxhead)
4 discipline areas
3.5 million word corpus
570 word families
West’s 1953 General Service List
General Academic Vocabulary
75% = 2000 most frequent words
10-15% = academic vocabulary
10-15% = specialist vocabulary
Academic Word List
Job Examine
Quantitative Qualitative
Omission Persuasion
Classification Determine
CriticismsMulti-meaning words
Volume Attribute
Is one core list possible?
Moving beyond individual words
General Service List + AWLAddress, control, meansAddress-issue, control-group, by-means
The Academic Word ListUsed in numerous booksKey to developing the area:
Coxhead and Hirsh (2007) Science word listWang, Liang and Ge (2008) Medical academic
word listWard (2009) Engineering word list
Brought lexis and further research to the fore
Academic Keyword List
Collection and purposeMagali Paquot (2010)
Does not exclude high frequency words
930 word list
Includes published academic texts and two student corpora
Collection and purpose50% from first 1000 words
97% from first 2000 + AWL
37.5% from AWL
AWL + 2000 = 85% text
Aimed more at writing than reading
CriticismsTransferability Vs. Specificity still in question
Arguably both needed at different stages
High frequency necessary
Single item focus
Beyond individual words
CollocationsHyland 2008
Electronic EngineeringBiologyBusiness StudiesApplied linguistics
4 word bundles
50 most frequentOn the other hand, as well as the, in the case
of, at the same time, the results of theHalf on one list only
CollocationsFunction of collocations
Research-orientated = location, procedure, quantification, description, topic
At the same time, the purpose of, a wide range of, the size of the, the currency board system
Text-orientated = transition, results, structure, framing
In addition to the, it was found that, in the next section, with the exception of
CollocationsParticipant-orientated = stance,
engagementIt is possible that, as can be seenDiscipline Research-
orientatedText-orientated
Participant-orientated
Biology 48.1% 43.5% 8.4%
Electrical engineering
49.4% 40.4% 9.2%
Applied linguistics
31.2% 49.5% 18.6%
Business studies
36% 48.4% 16.6%
CollocationHyland and Tse (2007)
marketing strategylearning strategycoping strategy
Durrant (2009)Life Sciences, Science and Engineering, Social-
Psychological, Social-administrative, Arts and Humanities
1000 two-word collocations across all 5 areas
CollocationThree quarters grammatical
Reporting pattern ‘verb + that’Argue, assume, conclude, confirm, demonstrate,
emphasize, hypothesize, imply, indicate, note, predict, reveal, show, speculate, suggest, suppose
Frequency and pattern combined
Transferability of use not investigatedBased on, associate with, note that, defined as,
relationship between, effects on, indicate that
Students Vs. Published Materials
Learner English Vs. native speaker academic English50% of AKL underused
Basis, extent, assume, appropriate21.4% overused
Aim, fact, main, also, oftenAmplify high frequency and diminish low ones
idea/problem Vs. hypothesis/converselyMany high frequency words under used
Argument, significant, particularlyBetween, in, by of = avoidance of noun modification
(Paquot, 2010)
Learner English Vs. native speaker academic EnglishLack of register awarenessClusters or sequences
For example, more and more, the problem is that
In particular, in terms of, a considerable degree
Semantic misuseOn the contrary
Chains of connective devices(Paquot, 2010)
Vocabulary and Reading
Skills and strategiesDo they exist? Are they needed?
skimming, scanning, predicting
Used by weak learners to cope
Used by good learners to enrich meaning
Critical thinking perhaps only possible if text processing is automatized
Poor word recognition > poor comprehension > practice is avoided
Cunningham and Stanovich (1998)
Skills develop and word recognition improve
VocabularyBackground knowledgeComplex structures
(Chall, 1983)
Impact of accessibility
Bulk of growth
Indirect exposure Vs. direct teaching
Reading Vs. Oral language
Vocabulary growth
Printed texts Rank of median word
Abstracts of scientific articles 4389
Newspapers 1690
Popular magazines 1399
Adult books 1058
Comic books 867
Children’s books 627
Pre-school books 578
Reading and Vocabulary
(Stanovich and Cunningham, 1998)
Reading and vocabulary
Speech lexically impoverished
Children’s books considerably rarer than most spoken forms
Adult books twice as prolific as speechRare words (outside 10,000)
128/1000 scientific abstracts 20-30/1000 in all forms of speech
Reading and vocabulary
How many words do learners need?3000 words (Laufer, 1992)
10,000 words (Hazenberg and Hulstijn, 1996)
1000 – 2000 (Laufer, 2000)
AWL + 2000 – is it enough?
98% text coverage (Nation)
ConclusionSelect list carefully to match aims
Pitch the level carefully
Balance skills and language carefully
www.macmillanskillful.com/
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Coxhead, A. (2000). A new academic word list. TESOL Quarterly, 34: 213-238.
Coxhead, A. (2011). The Academic Word List 10 Years On: Research and Teaching Implications. TESOL Quarterly, 45: 355-361
BibliographyDovey, T. (2006). What purposes specifically? Re-
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Eldridge, J. (2008). “No, There Isn’t an ‘Academic Vocabulary’ but…” TESOL Quarterly, 42: 109 – 113
Hyland, K., & Tse, P. (2007). Is there an “Academic Vocabulary”?. TESOL Quarterly, 41: 235 – 253.
BibliographyHyland, K. (2008). As can be seen: Lexical bundles
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Nagy, W, and Townsend, D. (2012). Words as Tools: Learning Academic Vocabulary as Language Acquisition. Reading Research Quarterly. 47(1). pp91-108.
BibliographyPaquot, M. (2010). Academic Vocabulary in
Learner Writing: from extraction to analysis. London: Continuum.
Ramoroka, B, T. (2012). Teaching Academic Writing for the Disciplines: How far can we be specific in an EAP writing course? English Linguistics Research. 1:2 available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.5430/elr.vln2p33
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