Academic VocabularyWhat is it and how can it be

incorporated into a language teaching program?

Diane Schmitt

TESOL Dallas March 2013

Vocabulary has traditionally been divided into four main types:  General

Academic

Technical

Low Frequency

(Nation, 2001)

General Vocabulary the 2000 most frequent words of English provide 80% coverage of most texts

arrive, discuss, follower, impossible, leader, message, repeat, story

Academic Vocabulary a list of 570 frequently occurring words in

academic texts provides approximately 8-12% coverage

of academic texts

attribute, category, environment, function, internal, monitor, perspective, widespread

Technical Vocabulary

words that occur with very high or moderate frequency level within a limited range of texts

provides 5% coverage of most texts

audit, capital, distribution, metrics, principal agent, shareholder, supply

Low Frequency Vocabulary words at the 2,000 - 20,000 frequency

level and beyond provides 5% coverage of most texts

abject, credentials, genealogy,geomorphic, incarcerate, palpitate, rupture

Relevance for teaching EAP Teach the most frequent 2000 words Teach the AWL/sub-technical vocabulary, if

students are going on to academic study Teach the technical words of a subject after

the first two sets of words have been learned

Or learners can/will learn technical words once they begin their subject studies or enter their field of work

Teach strategies for low-frequency words

Allan, S. (1999). News Culture. Open University Press.

FrequencyList

Families Types Tokens Percent

1-1000 489 758 4551 69.38%

1001-2000 127 167 281 4.28%Sub-total 73.66%AWL 262 400 834 12.71%Off-List ? 574 894 13.63%Total 878+ 1890 6560 100%

‘EAP’ Textbooks – OUP

‘EAP’ Textbooks - Pearson

It’s more complicated than that! Challenges to the AWL Alternative Definitions of Academic

Vocabulary Mutual Exclusivity of Vocabulary

Categories Lexical Validity

Challenges to the AWL (Hyland and Tse, 2007) One word list cannot serve students of

different disciplines equally well Disciplines have their own preferred

patterns of use for words – meaning sense, form, lexical and grammatical patterning

Homographs and word families distort the usefulness of the AWL and create an extra learning burden for no discernable gain

Vocabulary is not always acquired in the teaching sequence proposed by Nation

Critiques of the AWL “[General academic word lists fail] to

engage with current conceptions of literacy and EAP, ignore important differences in the collocational and semantic behavior of words, and do not correspond with the ways language is actually used in academic writing. [They] …could seriously mislead students.” (Hyland and Tse, 2007: 236-237)

Discipline specific behaviour of words

Inflectional forms display distinctly different distributional profiles across disciplines (or sub-disciplines) (Ward, 2009)

Different meaning senses will be differentially preferred across disciplines (Hyland and Tse, 2007)

Collocational patterning differs from discipline to discipline. This affects word meaning. marketing strategy, learning strategy, coping

strategy - Hyland and Tse, (2007) blueberry cell culture, cultures were grown -

Martinez et al, (2009)

Discipline specific behaviour of words/or shared qualities (Granger and Paquot, 2010)

VESPA Corpus developed at CECL University of Louvain, BelgiumDisciplinary differences for the use of analyze

Definitions of analyze from Hyland and Tse (2007)Hard Sciences – methods of determining the constituent parts or composition of a substanceSocial Sciences -consider something carefully

Discipline specific behaviour of words/or shared qualities (Granger and Paquot, 2010)

VESPA Corpus developed at CECL University of Louvain, BelgiumDisciplinary similarities for the use of analyze

Core meaning – to examine data using specific methods or tools in order to make sense of it

Alternative definitions of academic vocabulary

1. Items which express notions shared by all or several specialised disciplines – factor, method

2. Items which have a specialised meaning in one or more disciplines – bug, solution

3. Items which are not used in general language but which have different meanings in several specialised disciplines - morphological

4. Items which are traditionally viewed as general language vocabulary but which have restricted meanings in certain specialised disciplines – “genes are expressed”

5. General language items which are used, in preference to other semantically equivalent items, to describe or comment on technical processes and functions – “digestion takes place”

Alternative definitions of academic vocabulary

6. Items which are used in specialised texts to perform specific rhetorical functions – explanation, pointed out(Baker, 1988)

Words that “have in common a focus on research, analysis and evaluation” (Martin, 1976)

Vocabulary that serves specific rhetorical and organisational functions in expert academic writing (Paquot, 2010)

Traditional vocabulary categories are not mutually exclusive The GSL/2000 most frequent words of English tend

to have multiple meaning senses. Some of which are academic/sub-technical or technical in nature

AWL vocabulary occurs outside of academic contexts ‘Technicalness’ is a functional aspect of a word so

words can only usefully be categorized in light of the context of use

Frequency is relative and depends on the size and specificity of a domain. Sub-technical and technical vocabulary may be ‘high frequency’ in a particular domain, but ‘low frequency’ in a general corpus

“Disciplines are lexically idiosyncratic” (Ward, 2009: 173)

AWL in the BNC Lists

Four step rating scale for identifying technical words (Chung and Nation, 2004) Step 1 – Words such as function words that have no

particular relationship with a field of study amount, common, early

Step 2 – Words that have a meaning that is minimally related to a field of study superior, supports, protects

Step 3 – Words that have a meaning closely related to the field of study, but which also occur in general language abdomen, cavity, muscles

Step 4 – Words that have a meaning specific to a field and are not likely to be know in general language thorax, periostuem, viscera

Coverage of technical words in specialized texts (Chung and Nation, 2003)

Vocabulary Level

Anatomy Text Applied Linguistics Text

1st 2000 239,790 (53.3%) 63,992 (68.5%)

AWL 16,554 (3.7%) 6,422 (6.9%)

Technical Words 140,400 (31.2%) 19,208 (20.6%)

Low Frequency Words

53,256 (11.8%) 3,803 (4.0%)

Total Word Families

450,000 (100%) 93,445 (100%)

Coverage of technical words in specialized texts (Chung and Nation, 2003)

Vocabulary Level

Anatomy Text Applied Linguistics Text

1st 2000 239,790 (53.3%) 63,992 (68.5%)AWL 16,554 (3.7%) 6,422 (6.9%)Technical Words 140,400 (31.2%)

(35.6%) (64.4%)19,208 (20.6%)(88.4%) (11.6%)

Low Frequency Words

53,256 (11.8%) 3,803 (4.0%)

Total Word Families

450,000 (100%) 93,445 (100%)GSL/AWL vocabulary

Development of ESP/EAP word lists 2000 word Engineering list – Ward, (1999) –

corpus of engineering textbooks – foundation level students

1200 word Engineering list – Mudraya (2006) – corpus of basic engineering textbooks – university students

623 word Medical AWL – Wang et al (2008) – corpus of research articles – for learners and users of English for Medical Purposes

123 word Agricultural list – Martinez et al (2009) – corpus of research articles – experienced in discipline

970 word Academic Keyword List – Paquot (2010) – general academic word list

Issues with word lists for specific purposesLevel of specificity Academic Study

Science and TechnologyDiscipline or Field - Engineering

Subject – Mechanical engineering Occupational/Work

Airline IndustryFlight

Pilots, Air Traffic Controllers

Issues with word lists for specific purposesLearners in academic study Level of existing knowledge of the field

Foundation, upper undergraduate, graduate Immediate and long term goals Current level of language proficiency Acquisition patterns

Do ESP learners follow the norms of general English learners?“Our learners are clear examples of learners who acquire their English as they need it for their specific purpose…although they are usually unaware of even basic grammatical rules” (Martinez et al, 2009)

‘lexical validity’ (PTE Academic) the extent to which the vocabulary occurring in, and

elicited by, the test is representative of the vocabulary that test takers will encounter and be expected to produce, in real-world academic contexts.

“According to Paul Nation, authentic academic English texts typically contain at least 4% of AWL words. The results show that, according to this criterion, the test is academic in quality, both in respect of the language that it presents to test takers, and the language which it elicits.”

http://www.pearsonpte.com/research/Documents/RS_InvestigatingLexicalValidityOfPTEAcademic_2010.pdf

Is this text academic?

Are these academic?

A B

C D

A sample essay prompt for students of media studies How does the media influence the

immigration debate?(asylum, refugees, migrant workers)

A sample essay prompt for students of media studies How does the media influence the

immigration debate?(asylum, refugees, migrant workers)

Purpose The purpose for which a text is used

(rather than for which it was originally written) will determine whether or not a text is “academic” or not

This will impact on which vocabulary words students will need to know (at least receptively)

Fiction News/ Textbooks Journals Magazines

EFL EAP Freshman Disciplinary Exams Writing Comp Writing

What do we mean when we say something is academic?

MSc in Human Resource Management

From Text Selection to Teaching and Learning

Relationship between vocabulary size and text coverage

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

90%

91%

92%

93%

94%

95%

96%

97%

98%

99%

100%

Vocabulary Coverage

Com

preh

ensi

on P

erce

ntag

e

Mean

+1 SD

-1 SD

(Schmitt, Jiang & Grabe, 2011)

General guidance for independent use Nation (2006) analyzed nine written and spoken

corpora. He used the 98% figure to calculate vocabulary size requirements:

6,000 - 7,000 word families for spoken discourse

8,000 - 9,000 word families for written discourse

95% coverage (Laufer and Ravenhorst-Kalovski,2004) 4,000-5000 word families for written discourse

Instructional Contexts

Vocabulary coverage for business texts

(Hsu, 2011)

How much coverage do our categories provide? High frequency + AWL + technical often ≠

95%-98% coverage(Chung and Nation, 2003; Fraser 2005; Wang, Liang and Ge, 2008; Lessard-Clouston, 2010;)

Coverage of technical words in specialized texts (Chung and Nation, 2003)

Vocabulary Level

Anatomy Text Applied Linguistics Text

1st 2000 239,790 (53.3%) 63,992 (68.5%)AWL 16,554 (3.7%) 6,422 (6.9%)Technical Words 140,400 (31.2%)

(35.6%) (64.4%)19,208 (20.6%)(88.4%) (11.6%)

Low Frequency Words

53,256 (11.8%) 3,803 (4.0%)

Total Word Families

450,000 (100%) 93,445 (100%)88.2% coverage 96% coverage

Vocabulary size targets

If language teachers/materials teach and use… high frequency vocabulary: 2000 word families + academic vocabulary: 570 word families

Coverage shortfall 6000 – 2570 ≈ 3500 word families listening 8000 – 2570 ≈ 5500 word families reading

Considering the role of mid-frequency vocabulary (Schmitt and Schmitt, 2012)

Hi-frequency Low frequency vocabulary vocabulary Mid-frequency 3,001 – 8,999 3,000 9,000

families families

Mid-frequency vocabulary Words at the 3000-9000 frequency

levels provides 98% coverage of most texts

Subsumes the AWL and much technical vocabulary

Words work together “Technical vocabulary ‘is dependent for a full

appreciation of its meaning on the meaning of the other terms in the cluster of which it is a member.’” (Godman and Payne, 1981:37 in Coxhead and Nation, 2001)

Academic discourse contains large amounts of deliberate definition. Thus, it is important to ensure that learners

recognize that definition is occurring and have mastery of the vocabulary used in the definitions.

What can learners do with any particular vocabulary size?

250 words or fewer – read graded readers 2-3,000 words - understand defining vocabulary of

learner dictionaries 2-3,000 words – participate in daily conversation 3,000 – use TV and movies for teaching/learning 5,000 words – read authentic texts w/assistance 6-7,000 words – understand a wide range of oral

discourse without assistance 8-9,000 words – understand a wide range of written

discourse

NOT total vocabulary size, but mastery of each of these frequency bands

Grading learning materials Control vocabulary at the lower levels to ensure

that coverage levels for texts do not fall below 95%

Seed materials at middle and upper levels with mid-frequency vocabulary to ensure that there are enough recurrences for learning to take place

Academic Learning Materials

Sample for Writing with Sources

Writing from sources begins with readingReading Constructs Reading for basic comprehension

recall summarization text-based multiple choice questions

Reading to learn – connecting new information with background knowledge recognition of text structure create a representation of content knowledge

Reading to integrate link texts with regard to their individual text structure link content knowledge from a single text with that from

one or more texts (Trites and McGroarty, Language Testing, 2005)

Sample Task - Lying Syllabus Goal:

Students will write an essay where they are required to incorporate information from source texts

Learning focus: Students are not blank slates. Raise students’ awareness that

they do hold views on academic topics. Reading around a topic to gain new information and integrate it

into existing knowledge/understanding base Oral reporting and summarizing Introduction and recycling of mid-frequency vocabulary Fluency practice

Source Texts All of the following had texts on the topic of

lying

ANA in-flight magazine Wingspan Would I lie to you

American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry web pages

Children and Lying Psychology Today

The Truth about Lying: Has it gotten a bad rap Basic and Applied Social Psychology

Liking and Lying

Activity One Speaking

In small groups, invite students to share their views on the topic – Are people who lie morally flawed?

Reading All students read the short article “Would I lie to you” Students should continue small group discussion with

the following focus: How does the information from the reading affect the views you expressed earlier?

Ask a group representative to report on how the article related to the views of members of their group. Were already held views reinforced or supported; were they refuted? How similar or different was the affect on individual group members?

Activity Two – Extensive Reading Reading and Speaking

In small groups, invite students to share their views on the topic – Are people who lie morally flawed?

Students read all three remaining readings on the topic of lying.

Between each reading students orally (or in writing) reflect on their evolving views on the topic.

Assign an essay on the topic “Discuss the notion that lying is morally wrong in light of research findings.

Make a Text Chain - Lying

Text 1 2 3 4

Total 75 162 657 233families*

Mid-freq 2 17 139 35Families**

Percent2.6% 10.5% 21.2% 15.0%

* Includes families from 1,000 - 20,000** 3,000 – 9,000 frequency levels

Make a Text Chain - Lying

Text 1 2 3 4

Total 91 196 910 308types

Types - 30 133 165recycled (15.3%) (14.6%) (53.6%)

Where do we go from here? Start by finding out how much vocabulary your

students already know Include vocabulary assessment in your placement,

mid-course and end of course assessments

Vocabulary Profile Test

VLT- Schmitt,Schmitt &Clapham, (2001)

Available at:www.lextutor.ca/tests/

Where do we go from here? Set vocabulary targets separately from your

textbooks – ensure these correspond to your students’ needs

Be ambitious for your students 50 words per week X 40 weeks = 2000 words per

year (Grabe, 2009)

Where do we go from here? Use frequency information to guide vocabulary

choices for teaching Words needed to understand/do the text/activity can

be glossed

Remember 2000 + AWL is not enough

Supplement your textbooks to ensure that students get more exposure to the words you want to focus on at each level

Make use of vocabulary tools

Make use of vocabulary tools

Make use of vocabulary tools

In sum… Whether or not a text is academic depends on

its purpose Students will encounter a range of text types

in their university studies Students need to be aware of the lexico-

grammatical differences between text types Students need to develop a large vocabulary Word lists can help to focus teaching and fast

track development in reading or writing

Thank you for your attention.diane.schmitt@ntu.ac.uk