Cover not available

Article published In: Terminology
Vol. 26:1 (2020) ► pp.82–107

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
authorization required

Academic vocabulary and collocations used in language teaching and applied linguistics textbooks

A corpus-based approach

 | Shahid Beheshti University
 | Shahid Beheshti University
Published online: 12 June 2020
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/term.00043.gho
Abstract
Somewhere between technical and general vocabulary are located those words which are used in formal academic contexts with a high frequency across scientific disciplines (Farrell, Paul. 1990. “Vocabulary in ESP: A Lexical Analysis of the English of Electronics and a Study of Semi-Technical Vocabulary”. CLCS Occasional Paper No. 25. Trinity College.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). These are referred to as academic vocabulary. Recent findings do not support the adequacy of a single academic wordlist which can equally meet the needs of students of all disciplines (Durrant, Philip. 2016. “To what extent is the Academic Vocabulary List relevant to university student writing?” English for Specific Purposes 431: 49–61. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar), and this has inspired researchers to develop wordlists specific to each discipline. Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics is a discipline which often embraces a high number of non-English speaking students for whom it is a demanding task to engage in academic communication without having access to a ready-made resource. In the present study, a 10,781,188-word corpus based on textbooks taught in thirteen subject areas of this field was compiled. The corpus was characterized by a specified genre and time-span, and a large representative scope. It was used to draw up a list of academic words (= terminology) for students of this field. The wordlist, which is accompanied by a list of collocations, accounts for approximately 7.1% of the coverage in the corpus. The findings build on the trend toward generation of field-specific academic wordlists, which have significant implications for students, instructors, material developers and researchers.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Terminology and discipline-specific academic vocabulary
  • 2.Method
    • 2.1Scope representativeness
    • 2.2Genre and time-span
    • 2.3Sampling
    • 2.4Sample balance
    • 2.5Corpus size
    • 2.6Counting unit and stop-list
    • 2.7Word selection criteria
      • 2.7.1Minimum frequency
      • 2.7.2Range
      • 2.7.3Dispersion
      • 2.7.4Discipline measure
    • 2.8Collocations around the identified wordlist
  • 3.Results
  • 4.Discussion, conclusions, and implications
  • Notes
  • References
References (67)
References
Ackermann, Kirsten, & Yu-Hua Chen. 2013. “Developing the Academic Collocation List (ACL)–A corpus-driven and expert-judged approach.” Journal of English for Academic Purposes 12 (4): 235–247. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Anthony, Laurence. 2015. TagAnt (Version 1.1.0) [Computer Software]. Tokyo, Japan: Waseda University. Available from [URL]
Bahns, Jens, and Moira Eldaw. 1993. “Should we teach EFL students collocations?” System 21 (1): 101–114. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Biber, Douglas. 1993. “Representativeness in corpus design” Literary and linguistic computing 8 (4): 243–257. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brezina, Vaclav, & Dana Gablasova. 2015. “Is there a core general vocabulary? Introducing the New General Service List.” Applied Linguistics 36 (1): 1–22. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chen, Qi, & Guang-chun Ge. 2007. “A corpus-based lexical study on frequency and distribution of Coxhead’s AWL word families in medical research articles (RAs).” English for Specific Purposes 26 (4): 502–514. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cobb, Tom. 2003. “Analyzing late interlanguage with learner corpora: Quebec replications of three European studies.” Canadian Modern Language Review 59 (3): 393–424. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Conklin, Kathy, & Norbert Schmitt. 2012. “The processing of formulaic language.” Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 321: 45–61. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Conrad, Susan M. 1996. “Investigating academic texts with corpus-based techniques: An example from biology.” Linguistics and education 8 (3): 299–326. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cook, Guy. 2003. Applied linguistics. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Coxhead, Averil, & David Hirsch. 2007. “A pilot science-specific word list.” Revue française de linguistique appliquée 12 (2): 65–78. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Coxhead, Averil, & Murielle Demecheleer. 2018. “Investigating the technical vocabulary of plumbing.” English for Specific Purposes 511: 84–97. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Coxhead, Averil, Liesje Stevens, & Jenna Tinkle. 2010. “Why might secondary science textbooks be difficult to read?.” New Zealand Studies in Applied Linguistics 16 (2): 37.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Coxhead, Averil. 2000. “A new academic word list.” TESOL quarterly 34 (2): 213–238. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2008. “Phraseology and English for academic purposes.” Phraseology in language learning and teaching: 149–161. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2011. “The academic word list 10 years on: Research and teaching implications.” TESOL Quarterly 45 (2): 355–362. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2018. Vocabulary and English for specific purposes research: Quantitative and qualitative perspectives. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cribb, V. Michael, & Xuemei Wang. 2019. “Making academic vocabulary count through strategic deployment in oral presentations by Chinese students of English.” The Language Learning Journal: 1–14.‏ Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Csomay, Eniko, & Alexandra Prades. 2018. “Academic vocabulary in ESL student papers: A corpus-based study.” Journal of English for Academic Purposes 331: 100–118. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Drouin, Patrick, Marie-Claude L’Homme, and Benoît Robichaud. 2018. “Lexical profiling of environmental corpora.” Proceedings of the Eleventh International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC 2018): 3419–3425.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Durrant, Philip. 2016. “To what extent is the Academic Vocabulary List relevant to university student writing?” English for Specific Purposes 431: 49–61. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Farrell, Paul. 1990. “Vocabulary in ESP: A Lexical Analysis of the English of Electronics and a Study of Semi-Technical Vocabulary”. CLCS Occasional Paper No. 25. Trinity College.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Frankenberg-Garcia, Ana. 2018. “Investigating the collocations available to EAP writers.” Journal of English for Academic Purposes 351: 93–104. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gardner, Dee, & Mark Davies. 2014. “A new academic vocabulary list.” Applied linguistics 35 (3): 305–327. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Godman, Arthur, & Edward Maurice Frederick Payne. 1981. “A taxonomic approach to the lexis of science.” In English for Academic and Technical Purposes: Studies in honor of Louis Trimble, ed. by Larry Selinker, Elaine Tarone and Victor Hanzeli, 23–39. Rowley: Newbury House Publishers.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Green, Clarence, & James Lambert. 2018. “Advancing disciplinary literacy through English for academic purposes: Discipline-specific wordlists, collocations and word families for eight secondary subjects.” Journal of English for Academic Purposes 351: 105–115. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hu, Marcella & Paul Nation. 2000. “Unknown vocabulary density and reading comprehension.” Reading in a foreign language 13 (1): 403–430.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hyland, Ken, & Polly Tse. 2007. “Is there an “academic vocabulary”?” TESOL quarterly 41 (2): 235–253. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hyland, Ken. 2001. “Humble servants of the discipline? Self-mention in research articles.” English for specific purposes 20 (3): 207–226. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Johnson, Keith, & Helen Johnson. 1999. Encyclopedic Dictionary of Applied Linguistics: A Handbook for Language Teaching. UK: Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Konstantakis, Nikolaos. 2007. “Creating a business word list for teaching business English.” ELIA 71: 79–102.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Laufer, Batia. 2011. “The contribution of dictionary use to the production and retention of collocations in a second language.” International Journal of Lexicography 24 (1): 29–49. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lei, Lei, & Dilin Liu. 2016. “A new medical academic word list: A corpus-based study with enhanced methodology.” Journal of English for academic purposes 221: 42–53. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Li, Siu Leoung, & Richard Pemberton. 1994. “An investigation of students’ knowledge of academic and subtechnical vocabulary.” Proceedings of the joint seminar on corpus linguistics and lexicology. Hong Kong University of Science and Technology: 183–196.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Li, Yongyan, & David D. Qian. 2010. “Profiling the Academic Word List (AWL) in a financial corpus.” System 38 (3): 402–411. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Liu, Jia, & Lina Han. 2015. “A corpus-based environmental academic word list building and its validity test.” English for Specific Purposes 391: 1–11. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Malmström, Hans, Diane Pecorari, & Philip Shaw. 2018. “Words for what? Contrasting university students’ receptive and productive academic vocabulary needs.” English for Specific Purposes 501: 28–39. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Martínez, Iliana A., Silvia C. Beck, & Carolina B. Panza. 2009. “Academic vocabulary in agriculture research articles: A corpus-based study.” English for specific purposes 28 (3): 183–198. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Meyer, Charles F. 2004. English corpus linguistics: An introduction. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Milton, James. 2009. Measuring second language vocabulary acquisition. England: Multilingual Matters. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mudraya, Olga. 2006. “Engineering English: A lexical frequency instructional model.” English for Specific Purposes 25 (2): 235–256. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nation, Ian S. P. 2001. Learning vocabulary in another language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nation, Paul, & Alex Heatley. 2007. Range [Computer program]. Available at: [URL]
Nation, Ian S. P., & Stuart Alexander Webb. 2011. Researching and analyzing vocabulary. Boston, MA: Heinle, Cengage Learning.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nation, Ian S.P. 2015. Which words do you need? In The Oxford Handbook of the Word, ed. by John R. Taylor, 568-581. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Oakes, Michael P. 1998. Statistics for corpus linguistics. Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Paquot, Magali. 2005. “Towards a productively-oriented academic word list.” In Practical Applications in Language and Computers, ed. by Jacek Walinski, Krzysztof Kredens, and Stanislaw Gozdz-Roszkowski, 127–140. Frankfurt and Main: Peter Lang.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Qian, David D. 2002. “Investigating the relationship between vocabulary knowledge and academic reading performance: An assessment perspective.” Language learning 52 (3): 513–536. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Richards, Jack C., & Richard W. Schmidt. 2013. Longman dictionary of language teaching and applied linguistics. Harlow: Pearson. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schmitt, Norbert, & Cheryl Boyd Zimmerman. 2002. “Derivative word forms: What do learners know?” TESOL Quarterly 36 (2): 145–171. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schuth, Elisabeth, Judith Köhne, & Sabine Weinert. 2017. “The influence of academic vocabulary knowledge on school performance.” Learning and Instruction 491: 157–165. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Scott, Mike. 2018. WordSmith tools (version 7) [computer software]. Lexical Analysis Software Ltd.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sinclair, John. 2004. Corpus and text: Basic principles. In Developing linguistic corpora: A guide to good practice, ed. by Martin Wynne, 1–16. Oxford: Oxbow Books.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1991. Corpus, concordance, collocation. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sridhar, Shikaripur N. 1993. “What are applied linguistics?” International journal of applied linguistics 3 (1): 3–16. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Terryn, Ayla Rigouts, Véronique Hoste, & Els Lefever. 2019. “In no uncertain terms: a dataset for monolingual and multilingual automatic term extraction from comparable corpora.” Language Resources and Evaluation: 1–34.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Todd, Richard Watson. 2017. “An opaque engineering word list: Which words should a teacher focus on?” English for Specific Purposes 451: 31–39. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Townsend, Dianna, Alexis Filippini, Penelope Collins, & Gina Biancarosa. 2012. “Evidence for the importance of academic word knowledge for the academic achievement of diverse middle school students.” The Elementary School Journal 112 (3): 497–518. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Valipouri, Leila, & Hossein Nassaji. 2013. “A corpus-based study of academic vocabulary in chemistry research articles.” Journal of English for Academic Purposes 12 (4): 248–263. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Vo, Sonca. 2019. “Use of lexical features in non-native academic writing.” Journal of Second Language Writing 441: 1–12. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Vongpumivitch, Viphavee, Ju-yu Huang, & Yu-Chia Chang. 2009. “Frequency analysis of the words in the Academic Word List (AWL) and non-AWL content words in applied linguistics research papers.” English for Specific Purposes 28 (1): 33–41. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wang, Jing, Shao-lan Liang, & Guang-chun Ge. 2008. “Establishment of a medical academic word list.” English for Specific Purposes 27 (4): 442–458. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ward, Jeremy. 2009. “A basic engineering English word list for less proficient foundation engineering undergraduates.” English for specific purposes 28 (3): 170–182. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Webb, Stuart, & Paul Nation. 2017. How vocabulary is learned. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
West, Michael. 1953. A General Service List of English Words. London: Longman, Green & Co.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Yang, Ming-Nuan. 2015. “A nursing academic word list.” English for specific purposes 371: 27–38. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zimmerman, Cheryl. 2014. “Teaching and learning vocabulary for second language learners.” In Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language, ed. by Celce-Murcia, Marianne, Donna Brinton, and Marguerite Ann Snow. 288–302. Boston, MA: Heinle Cengage Learning.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (10)

Cited by ten other publications

Mahdevar, Mina, Mohammadreza Valizadeh & Ismail Xodabande
2025. Developing an academic word list for mathematics research articles: A corpus-based approach. Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies 43:3 ► pp. 409 ff. DOI logo
Saeedi, Mostafa, Reza Khany & Khalil Tazik
2025. Research Methods Used for Developing Academic Wordlists: A Systematic Review of Studies Published Between 2000 and 2020. Chinese Journal of Applied Linguistics 48:3 ► pp. 425 ff. DOI logo
Song, Jun
2024. An Empirical Study on Convergent Teaching of Academic English and General English in the Internet Era. Applied Mathematics and Nonlinear Sciences 9:1 DOI logo
Tian, Mengxin
2024. An Analysis of the Efficacy of L2-MT Mixed Modeling in Second Language Acquisition - A Cognitive Ability Perspective. Applied Mathematics and Nonlinear Sciences 9:1 DOI logo
Yang, Xin
2024. The application of OBE fused with PDCA teaching model in teaching English applied language. Applied Mathematics and Nonlinear Sciences 9:1 DOI logo
Li, Xiaohui & Hongru Zhao
2022. Realization of English Instructional Resources Clusters Reconstruction System Using the Machine Learning Model. Computational Intelligence and Neuroscience 2022 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Chen, Liang‐Ching & Kuei‐Hu Chang
2021. A novel corpus‐based computing method for handling critical word‐ranking issues: An example of COVID‐19 research articles. International Journal of Intelligent Systems 36:7 ► pp. 3190 ff. DOI logo
Du, Jiali, Christina Alexantris & Pingfang Yu
2021. Towards Chinese Terminology Application of TERMONLINE. In Advances in Artificial Intelligence, Software and Systems Engineering [Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems, 271], ► pp. 190 ff. DOI logo
Gholaminejad, Razieh
2020. A Critical Review of the Word Classification System . HOW 27:2 ► pp. 156 ff. DOI logo
Ubaque-Casallas, Diego & Harold Castañeda-Peña
2020. Non-normative corporalities and transgender identity in English as a Foreign Language student teachers. HOW 27:2 ► pp. 13 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 6 december 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue