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What is academic vocabulary?
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Feb 24, 2024
Understand what academic vocabulary is, with a look at some important academic word lists, plus reasons why studying academic vocabulary is important and some tips on how to study it successfully. ▬ Contents of this video ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ 00:00 Intro 00:40 Definition 03:57 Academic wordlists #1: single words 05:43 Vocabulary shift 08:22 General words with academic meaning 11:27 Academic wordlists #2: subject-specific lists 13:11 Academic wordlists #3: multiword lists 16:03 Why is academic vocabulary important? 17:17 Example text 21:29 Learning academic vocabulary 23:29 Outro ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ For more information on this topic, see: https://www.eapfoundation.com/vocab/academic/ There is a worksheet which goes with this video:
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This video is brought to you by eapfoundation.com, the website for all your academic English needs
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So this video will answer the question, what is academic vocabulary? First we'll look at a definition of academic vocabulary
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The second part will be word lists, with a couple of digressions first into something
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called vocabulary shift and also general words with academic meaning. After that we'll consider why academic vocabulary is important
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We'll see an example text and study the academic vocabulary that it contains
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And I'll finish off with a few tips for learning academic vocabulary
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So let's start with a broad definition of academic vocabulary. We'll have a more specific definition later
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So the broad definition is the vocabulary used in academic contexts. And generally this means university, although it can also mean school
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We need to be careful here because there are spoken academic contexts, in other words
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presentations, discussions, lectures, and written academic contexts, essays, reports and so on
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Although there's a big area of similarity between spoken and written academic English
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there are also quite a few differences with spoken academic English including more informal expressions
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Mostly I'll be thinking about written academic vocabulary because reading and writing is
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the main part of academic study and most research into academic vocabulary has actually
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focused on the written form. So one problem with the broad definition we have, the vocabulary used in academic contexts
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is that it potentially includes all vocabulary. This includes general vocabulary, in other words everyday words like to, other, about
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will, because, number, with, verbs to have, to be, articles like a, and, the
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Surely if we're talking about academic vocabulary it should be something different from general vocabulary
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So this leads us on to a more specific definition of academic vocabulary which is vocabulary
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which occurs frequently in academic texts but less frequently in non-academic ones
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So not words like to, or to be, or with because those occur frequently in both types
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When I say texts in the definition I'm considering both written and spoken texts
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Now a potential problem with this definition is that it also includes technical vocabulary
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For example the word enzyme for biology, or ion for chemistry, or turnover for economics
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or business, or assassination for history. Now some writers consider technical vocabulary to be academic vocabulary, but most writers
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consider academic vocabulary to be something different, lying between general vocabulary and technical vocabulary
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So let's modify the definition a little. Academic vocabulary is vocabulary which occurs frequently in academic texts across many different
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subject areas but less frequently in non-academic texts. This means words like access, identify, process and method, which are not technical words
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but they are used more frequently in academic English than in non-academic English
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This classification sometimes goes by other names. Beck MacEwan O'Cooken in 2002 called these Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3 vocabulary
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Because of its position between general and technical vocabulary, academic vocabulary is sometimes called sub-technical vocabulary or specialised non-technical vocabulary
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While for technical vocabulary you may sometimes see terms like content-specific vocabulary
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context-specific or domain-specific vocabulary. So that's the definition of academic vocabulary. Let's move on to look at word lists
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So perhaps the most well-known academic word list is the academic word list, the AWL, which
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very much follows this categorisation of vocabulary. So just some brief details here
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The AWL is a list of 570 word families. For example, for the adjective similar, the family consists of the noun, similarity, the
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adverb, similarly, and the opposite adjective, dissimilar. So the AWL excludes words from the General Service List, or the GSL, which is a list
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of 2000 general English words, like the ones we just saw, to be, to have, a and the
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It's meant for use in all subject areas and accounts for around 10% of words in academic
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texts, in contrast to the GSL which is about 80%. And technical vocabulary generally is around 5%
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The AWL is actually meant for receptive purposes, in other words, reading
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And this is generally true of word family lists. They are intended for receptive, in other words, reading or listening purposes
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This is in contrast to productive purposes, in other words, writing or speaking
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The reasoning here is if you know the word similar and you see the noun similarity, you
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will understand what it means. If you know similar and you see the word dissimilar, you can guess that it's the opposite
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But for productive purposes, this doesn't necessarily work. If you know the adjective similar, it doesn't mean you know the noun
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Maybe it's similarness. Or the opposite, maybe it's unsimilar. You have to learn those different forms separately
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So this is fine if you're studying the academic word list for receptive purposes, but it does
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present some problems in terms of studying academic vocabulary for productive purposes
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And this is related to something called the vocabulary shift from general to academic
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In other words, recognising which words are suitable for academic writing and which words
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are not. Let's see some examples to help us understand this. Let's look at the kind of writing students might be familiar with before they start a
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course of academic English. So this is an example email. So this is an example email
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So this is an example email. So this is an example email. So this is an example email. So this is an example email
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So this is an example email. So this is an example email. So this is an example email. So this is an example email
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So this is an example email. So this is an example email. So this is an example email. So this is an example email
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So this is an example email. So this is an example email. So this is an example email. So this is an example email
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So this is an example email. So this is an example email. So this is an example email. So this is an example email
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So this is an example email. So this is an example email. your, yours. On the other hand, some of it is
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So obviously basic words like an, and in. The words writing, payments, faithfully. But there are also some words and phrases which are more common in academic English
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with regard to interest and increase. An example of fiction. Where are you going, he said. It was a bad thing to ask
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So the pronoun you is not very suitable for academic English, nor is going, said, and in. So this is an example email
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So this is an example email. So this is an example email. So this is an example email. So this is an example email
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So this is an example email. So this is an example email. So this is an example email. So this is an example email
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So this is an example email. So this is an example email. So this is an example email
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So this is an example email. So this is an example email. So this is an example email. So this is an example email
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So this is an example email. So this is an example email. So this is an example email. So this is an example email
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So this is an example email. So this is an example email. So this is an example email. So this is an example email
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So this is an example email. So this is an example email. So this is an example email. So this is an example email
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So this is an example email. So this is an example email. So this is an example email. So this is an example email
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So this is an example email. So this is an example email. New variant strikes, warns Health Chief
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So there are no words there which are not suitable for academic English, and actually
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some which are more common in academic English than general English, namely tests, hinder
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and variant. So the point of those example texts is to show that not all general vocabulary is suitable
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for academic writing, and the vocabulary shift I mentioned from general to academic English
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is about two things. First recognizing which words to avoid in academic writing, and second understanding
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more academic alternatives. For example, for bad, we could say negative, negative effects
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Thing could be many things, such as factor, reasons, examples, depending on the context
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Instead of say, we might use the verb state. Instead of ask, we might say inquire
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And some other examples which we didn't see there, the verb see, look for, and idea
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So a more formal alternative to see is observe. Instead of the two word verb look for, we have seek
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Instead of idea, we have notion. An interesting feature of academic and also technical vocabulary is that there are some
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general vocabulary words which have one meaning in general English, but another meaning when
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used academically or technically. For example, the word discipline, which means training people to obey rules, in academic
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English means the subject of study. Population, which is the number of people living in a country or region, in academic
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English means all the individuals who could possibly be included in a study or survey
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The word base means the bottom of something, but in chemistry it's a technical term, referring
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to a water-soluble compound with pH less than 7, which reacts with an acid to form a salt
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It's also used in linguistics to mean the verb without to. For example, the base of disgust is disgust
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And the word summit, which means the top of something, is used in history or other subjects
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to refer to a conference of high-level officials, for example heads of government
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And the word bug, which is a kind of insect, in computer science means a flaw in the programming system
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So general words which have special or technical meanings is something else students need to
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be aware of. And this detail is potentially lost if general words are excluded from academic or even technical
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word lists. A different list which overcomes some of the problems of the academic word list is the
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academic vocabulary list, or AVL. So this is a list of 3,015 words or 500 words in the core list
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It doesn't use word families with many different words, it uses what's called lemmas
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That's a bit technical, but basically it just means plurals, verb inflections and alternative spellings
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So for the example we saw, similar, similarity, similarly and dissimilar, rather than being
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one word family, these are four different words. And with similarity of course we need the plural similarities
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Another word in the AVL is the verb discuss, plus the forms discusses, discussed and discussing
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And then a separate word is the noun discussion, and of course the plural discussions
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An important point of the AVL is it does not exclude any list, which means it can include
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words like discuss and discussion, which are contained in the GSL and therefore they're
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not in the academic word list, the AWL. Additionally words are included if they occur at least 1.5 times as often in academic as
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non-academic texts. The word discuss is actually 1.53 times more common in academic texts as non-academic texts
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Word discussion is 1.94 times as common, in other words it occurs almost twice as often
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in academic texts as non-academic texts. Because it's a lemma-based list, not a word family list, it's actually intended for productive
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purposes, in other words academic writing, not receptive purposes, in other words reading
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And the fact that it does not exclude any list perhaps makes it easier for students
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to recognise general words that they already know, which are acceptable for, in fact which
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are more common in academic English. Now we've been considering academic non-technical vocabulary which is used across a range of
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subjects, but the fact is not all academic vocabulary is the same
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For example if we're writing a laboratory report, we're going to be writing about the
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apparatus or the procedure or the errors in the experiment. On the other hand if we're conducting social science research, we won't be using those
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words, instead we'll want words like survey, population and sample, which a scientist is
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less likely to use. So those are the kind of words which are included in general academic lists
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As a result some researchers have developed subject-specific academic vocabulary lists. So these consist of non-technical vocabulary which occurs frequently in academic texts
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of one specific subject area, but less frequently in non-academic texts. So I won't go into these in detail, but examples include the business word list, the nursing
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academic word list, medical academic word list and economics academic word list
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Most of these are modelled after the academic word list. There are some which follow the model of the academic vocabulary list, for example the
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medical academic vocabulary list and the computer science academic vocabulary list. Now all of the lists we've seen so far have been of single words
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Studying single words doesn't always tell us the whole story. For example, we saw earlier that the word thing is not academic
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But a recent study by Granger and Larson 2021 showed that expert academic writers sometimes
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use this word in various phrases, such as other things being equal, or there is no such
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thing as, or is the same thing as. It's important in any vocabulary study, including academic vocabulary, to consider multi-word
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units, in other words word combinations. Perhaps the most well-known list here is the academic collocation list, or ACL
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I've made a couple of videos on this before, so this is a list of 2,469 collocations for
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academic English. In other words, adjective and noun combinations, verb and noun, adverb and adjective and so on
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For example, for the word similar, which we saw earlier, it's in the academic word list
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We have similar approach, similar argument, similar characteristics, effect, issue, pattern, properties, result, situation, broadly similar and remarkably similar
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For discuss, which was in the AVL, we have discuss a topic, discuss an issue, briefly
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discussed, be widely discussed, previously discussed. For discussion, we have brief discussion, earlier discussion, fuller, preceding and
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previous discussion. Multi-word lists also have some subject-specific academic word lists. An example is the nursing collocation list, which is 488 collocations that frequently
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occur in nursing journal articles. So for example, I won't read all of these, but these are the examples for the word health
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It's interesting that actually only two of these, mental health and physical health
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also occur in the ACL, while none of the other collocations we just saw with similar discuss
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and discussion actually occur in the NCL. And that's of course the reason why researchers developed these lists, because they are more
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useful for specific subject areas than general academic lists. A few more lists now, which I'll introduce very briefly, mainly because I want to refer
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to them later. First the academic formulas list, AFL, which is a list of academic formulas, in other words
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three to five word combinations. For example, in terms of, at the same time, on the other hand, due to the fact that, it
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should be noted. It's interesting that those are mostly general words, but when combined together, they form
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academic phrases. Another is the academic idioms list, which is a list of 38 idioms for written academic
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English or 170 idioms for spoken academic English. Idioms of course are a bit informal and therefore tend to be more common in spoken academic English
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Examples of idioms from the written idioms list are in light of, bear in mind, and along
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the lines of. Finally somewhere between single words and multi-word lists is the discourse connectors
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list or DCL. And this is a list of 632 discourse connectors, which are sometimes single words, sometimes
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multi-word units. For example, however, although, for example, and in addition. Okay so that's word lists and we had a little digression there into vocabulary shift and
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general words with academic meaning. Let's consider now why academic vocabulary is important
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Now that we've seen those lists, we can better understand why academic vocabulary is important
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One reason is because it's different from general vocabulary. These are more difficult words that learners are less likely to know
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At the same time, they comprise quite a lot of academic texts
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The academic word list, for example, comprises 10% of academic texts, while the academic
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vocabulary list is about 14%. A third reason is because academic vocabulary is non-technical
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And that's important because technical words like some of the ones we've seen, enzyme
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ion, turnover, assassination. These are ones which the lecturer or the teacher are likely to explain
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They are special. They have special meaning in the subject area. But this is not the case for academic vocabulary, which because of its non-specialist nature
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subject lecturers will assume students already understand. Let's look now at an example academic text and try to understand the different academic
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vocabulary that it contains
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So this is an authentic academic text. It's from an economics article
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The source is there. I'm going to read it through once. And as I read it, maybe you can try to guess which words or phrases you think are particularly
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academic or ones which are maybe particularly technical. It is well documented that women occupy top executive positions in politics and industry
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much less frequently than men. For example, at the 2014 G20 summit, only five out of 58 leaders were female
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In the world, only 17% of government ministers and only 5.2% of S&P 500 CEOs are female
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While explanations such as discrimination have been put forward, self-selection, that is, differences in leadership ambition, are likely a major factor behind these gender gaps
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Indeed, there is evidence that women are less likely than men to seek to be elected to political
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leadership positions and that female students are less likely to run for student government
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in college. Lawrence and Fox, 2008, New, 2014, Cathack and Woon, 2015
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Consequently, many corporations, NGOs and colleges now implement leadership training programs targeted towards females, designed to both build women's leadership skills and
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get them interested in leadership in the first place. So let's look at the vocabulary here
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We'll start with technical vocabulary. It's often easy to spot technical vocabulary because while it's high frequency in subject
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areas, it's low frequency outside of those subject areas. So one technical phrase there is G20 Summit, which is an annual meeting of leaders from
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the countries with the largest and fastest growing economies. S&P 500, this is short for Standard and Poor's 500, which is 500 of the largest companies
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in the US. CEOs, which you may be familiar with, is Chief Executive Officers
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NGOs is Non-Governmental Organizations. Another word, actually part of a phrase, which I think is rather technical, is executive
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executive positions. Executive means relating to important people in a company who make decisions
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So this is a very common phrase in economics, but probably not so common outside of economics
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So those are technical words. Let's focus on academic words, which is what we're really interested in
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Let's start with multi-word units, collocations from the ACL. Well-documented is one
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Major factor is another. And political leadership is a third. Let's look at discourse connectors, not all of them, but just the ones which are multi-word
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So for example, such as, and in the first place. Academic formulas, actually there's only one which is used in two places, and that is less
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likely to. How about single academic words? Well let's look at ones first which occur both in the academic word list and the academic
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vocabulary list. And there are quite a few of these. Discrimination is one
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Selection, evidence, seek, consequently, which is also in the discourse connectors list
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targeted, and designed. Words which are just in the academic word list, occupy, gender, corporations, and implement
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Words which are just in the academic vocabulary list, so the word frequently, female, which
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is used in four places, explanations, differences, likely, indeed, which is also in the discourse
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connectors list, and both. That's actually quite a lot of words, looking at different kinds of lists
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There are collocations, phrases, discourse connectors, and many single academic words. Most of what's left is general vocabulary, simple words
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For example, in the first line, it, is, that, woman, top, and in
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There's a few difficult words there, politics, industry, government, ministers, but nothing
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too difficult. So that's an example text. Let's finish off with some tips about learning academic vocabulary
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So I've talked quite a bit about word lists, and I would suggest using word lists as a
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starting point. They help you to understand what academic vocabulary looks like, and help you to make
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that transition from general English to academic English. I especially recommend using an academic word list highlighter or a profiler to see the
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words in context. Also, don't just focus on single words. You should try to study multi-word units so that you can use the words in combination
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As much as possible, try to use the words productively in your speaking or your writing
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It's also a good idea to increase your exposure by reading more academic English, or possibly non-fiction
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Academic English can be difficult to read, but non-fiction, including subject textbooks
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are generally very academic in tone. This kind of reading, called extensive reading, can lead to incidental vocabulary learning
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and can help you to improve your knowledge of collocation, and also help you to understand
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which words are academic, and therefore help you to make the vocabulary shift from general
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to academic. Building up your knowledge of words in this way is also important, because research has
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shown that comfortable reading requires knowledge of about 98% of words in text, which takes
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around 8,000 to 9,000 word families. It's difficult to reach that number just by intentional vocabulary learning alone
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I'll actually finish with a quote. This is from an article by Maxwell, 2013, and I found it in a chapter on academic vocabulary
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written by Avril Coxhead, who developed the academic word list. The quote is, nobody is a native speaker of academic English
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In other words, even native speakers of English need to learn how to speak, and how to write, academically
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And the main way they do this is by reading more academic English, and paying attention
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to the language and the vocabulary that it contains. So that's the end of the video
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As always, you can find more information on this topic on the website, eapfoundation.com
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You can also find full copies of many of the word lists mentioned today, as well as vocabulary
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highlighters and a vocabulary profiler. And as always, there's a worksheet that accompanies this video
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Visit eapfoundation.com forward slash news forward slash social. And I'll see you next time
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