Exploring the Use of Vocabulary from Academic Word List in Applied Linguistics Journal Articles

• Main Authors: Ju-Yu Huang, 黃茹玉
• Other Authors: Viphavee Vongpumivitch
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2007
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/19500794921240732122

碩士 === 國立清華大學 === 外國語文學系 === 95 === This study aims to address the use of academic vocabulary from the Academic Word List (AWL) (Coxhead, 2000) by compiling an “Applied Linguistics Corpus (ALC)” which consists of approximately 200 research papers published in five international journals in the field of applied linguistics: (1) TESOL Quarterly, (2) The Modern Language Journal, (3) Applied Linguistics, (4) Language Learning, and (5) Second Language Research. The ALC contains around 1.5 million running words. The goals of this study are, first, to explore the frequency of the AWL vocabulary used in the applied linguistics journal articles; second, to investigate the verb-noun collocations and lexical bundles of the high frequency AWL vocabulary in the ALC; third, to analyze the rhetorical functions for the high frequency lexical bundles in Swales’ (1990) IMRD sections (Introduction- Method – Result – Discussion); fourth, to identify the non-AWL content vocabulary that occurs frequently in the ALC; and finally, to examine to what extent English-major freshmen and TEFL-program graduate students are familiar with the top 100 non-AWL vocabulary. Some criteria for selecting the AWL vocabulary, V-N collocations, four-word lexical bundles, the non-AWL content vocabulary in the ALC are as follows. First, each AWL or non-AWL word-form has to occur at least 50 times in the entire ALC and five times in each of the five journals. Second, the V-N collocations and four-word lexical bundles should include one of the top 100 AWL word-forms or the headword of their word families. Third, the V-N collocations should occur at least 10 times in the entire corpus and once in each of the five journals while the four-word lexical bundles should occur at least 15 times in the ALC and once in each of the five journals. The findings show that the AWL word-forms account for 11.3% in the entire ALC, which implies the AWL word-forms account for high percentage in the field of applied linguistics. The 477 AWL word-forms make up 8.8% in the whole corpus, suggesting that the 477 word-forms are useful for learners in the field of applied linguistics due to their high frequency. Moreover, 41 V-N collocations and 26 four-word lexical bundles are identified among the top 100 AWL word-forms or the headword of their word families in the ALC. Different V-N collocations derived from the same AWL word-form occur most frequently in different sections in research articles (RAs) but different bundles derived from the same AWL word-form most frequently occur in the same sections. This suggests that the verb and noun in the V-N collocations decide which RA section they most frequently occur in because the meanings of verb and noun would influence this decision. In terms of rhetorical functions of lexical bundles, almost all of the bundles with the same AWL word-form perform the same function in one RA section. Some AWL word-forms generate different bundles but all of the bundles perform common functions. The findings imply that the nature of a word would influence how their bundles perform the rhetorical functions. Furthermore, 128 non-AWL content word-forms are identified in the ALC and they include some specialized terms such as semantics, pragmatics, syntax in the applied linguistics field. Finally, the TEFL-program graduate students are more familiar with the top 100 non-AWL content word-forms than English-major freshmen because graduate students understand more background knowledge of applied linguistics field than freshmen. The contribution of the present study is to provide valuable data for learners, teachers and course designers in the field of applied linguistics. In ESP courses, the 477 AWL word-forms and 128 non-AWL content word-forms can be the goal for vocabulary learning. Moreover, teachers can incorporate the V-N collocations and lexical bundles with its rhetorical functions into writing exercises for students to practice. In this way, students can become aware of how to use collocations and bundles in their writing. Future research can investigate the effectiveness of the application of the vocabulary, collocations or bundles in classroom teaching and examine their usefulness for students in the field of applied linguistics.