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

Too general?www.lextutor.ca

2000 + 570 = 85%

10% AWL

75% 2000

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/

BibliographyAnthony, 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

BibliographyDovey, 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 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

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.

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

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