Louis Rogers

www.macmillanskillful.com/
Overview
Defining academic vocabulary

The Academic Word List

The Academic Keyword List

Beyond individual words

Vocabulary and reading

Academic vocabulary
There 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 vocabulary
Latin and Greek vocabulary
eat/dine, right/correct
abstract, analyze, aspect

Morphologically complex words
Predisposition

Nouns, adjectives and prepositions
4:1 Vs. 1:1

(Nagy and Townsend, 2012)
Academic vocabulary
Grammatical metaphor, including nominalization
Informational density
ratio of content words to total words
Abstractness
respiration

Just because people who read more can read better doesnt 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 List
The Academic Word List (Coxhead)

4 discipline areas

3.5 million word corpus

570 word families

Wests 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

Criticisms
Multi-meaning words

Volume Attribute

Is one core list possible?

Moving beyond individual words

General Service List + AWL
Address, control, means
Address-issue, control-group, by-means

Too general?
www.lextutor.ca

2000 + 570 = 85%

10% AWL

75% 2000

The Academic Word List
Used in numerous books
Key to developing the area:

Coxhead and Hirsh (2007) Science word list
Wang, Liang and Ge (2008) Medical academic word list
Ward (2009) Engineering word list

Brought lexis and further research to the fore





Academic Keyword List
Collection and purpose
Magali Paquot (2010)

Does not exclude high frequency words

930 word list

Includes published academic texts and two student
corpora

Collection and purpose
50% from first 1000 words

97% from first 2000 + AWL

37.5% from AWL

AWL + 2000 = 85% text

Aimed more at writing than reading

Criticisms
Transferability Vs. Specificity still in question

Arguably both needed at different stages

High frequency necessary

Single item focus



Beyond individual words
Collocations
Hyland 2008
Electronic Engineering
Biology
Business Studies
Applied linguistics

4 word bundles

50 most frequent
On the other hand, as well as the, in the case of, at the
same time, the results of the
Half on one list only

Collocations
Function 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
Collocations
Participant-orientated = stance, engagement
It is possible that, as can be seen


Discipline Research-
orientated
Text-
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%
Collocation
Hyland and Tse (2007)

marketing strategy
learning strategy
coping strategy

Durrant (2009)
Life Sciences, Science and Engineering, Social-
Psychological, Social-administrative, Arts and
Humanities

1000 two-word collocations across all 5 areas
Collocation
Three 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 investigated
Based on, associate with, note that, defined as,
relationship between, effects on, indicate that




Students Vs. Published Materials
Learner English Vs. native speaker
academic English
50% of AKL underused
Basis, extent, assume, appropriate
21.4% overused
Aim, fact, main, also, often
Amplify high frequency and diminish low ones
idea/problem Vs. hypothesis/conversely
Many high frequency words under used
Argument, significant, particularly
Between, in, by of = avoidance of noun modification
(Paquot, 2010)


Learner English Vs. native speaker
academic English
Lack of register awareness
Clusters or sequences
For example, more and more, the problem is that
In particular, in terms of, a considerable degree
Semantic misuse
On the contrary
Chains of connective devices
(Paquot, 2010)




Vocabulary and Reading
Skills and strategies
Do 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

Vocabulary
Background knowledge
Complex 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
Childrens books 627
Pre-school books 578
Reading and Vocabulary







(Stanovich and Cunningham, 1998)
Reading and vocabulary
Speech lexically impoverished

Childrens books considerably rarer than most spoken
forms
Adult books twice as prolific as speech
Rare 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)
Conclusion
Select list carefully to match aims

Pitch the level carefully

Balance skills and language carefully









www.macmillanskillful.com/
Bibliography
Anthony, L. (2011). Products, processes and practitioners: A
critical look at the importance of specificity in ESP. Taiwan
International ESP Journal. Vol 3:2 1-8
Bennett, K. (2009). English academic style manuals: A
survey. English for specific purposes. 8 p43-54.
Biber, D, Conrad, S and Leech, G. (2002). Student
Grammar of Spoken and Written English. Longman:
Harlow.
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
Bibliography
Dovey, T. (2006). What purposes specifically? Re-
thinking purposes and specificity in the context of the
new vocationalism, English for Specific Purposes,
25(4), 387-402.
Durrant, P. (2009). Investigating the viability of a
collocation list for students of English for academic
purposes. English for specific purposes. 28 p157-169.
Eldridge, J. (2008). No, There Isnt an Academic
Vocabulary but TESOL Quarterly, 42: 109 113
Hyland, K., & Tse, P. (2007). Is there an Academic
Vocabulary?. TESOL Quarterly, 41: 235 253.

Bibliography
Hyland, K. (2008). As can be seen: Lexical bundles and
disciplinary variation. English for specific purposes. 27 p4-
21.
James, M.A. (2009). Far transfer of learning outcomes
from an ESL writing course: Can the gap be bridged?
English for Specific Purposes. 18 69-84
Jordan, R, R. (1998). English for Academic Purposes: A
guide and resource book for teachers. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Nagy, W, and Townsend, D. (2012). Words as Tools:
Learning Academic Vocabulary as Language Acquisition.
Reading Research Quarterly. 47(1). pp91-108.

Bibliography
Paquot, 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
Snow, C.E. (2010). Academic language and the
challenge of reading for learning about science.
Science. 450-452.