Nagy and Townsend, 2012:91
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Transcript Nagy and Townsend, 2012:91
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 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 List
The 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
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
Researchorientated
Textorientated
Participantorientated
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, SocialPsychological, 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
Impact of accessibility
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)
Vocabulary growth
Bulk of growth
Indirect exposure Vs. direct teaching
Reading Vs. Oral language
Reading and Vocabulary
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 speech
Rare words (outside 10,000)
128/1000 scientific abstracts
20-30/1000 in all forms of speech
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 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.
Bibliography
Hyland, K. (2008). As can be seen: Lexical bundles and
disciplinary variation. English for specific purposes. 27 p421.
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.