scholarly journals A Critical Review of the Word Classification System

HOW ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 156-167 ◽  
Author(s):  
Razieh Gholaminejad
Keyword(s):  
Critical Points ◽  
Critical Review ◽  
Classification System ◽  
High Frequency ◽  
Word List ◽  
English For Academic Purposes ◽  
Academic Vocabulary ◽  
Critical Position ◽  
Word Classification ◽  
General Service

In this reflective paper, we review the currently-used word classification system proposed by linguist Paul Nation (2013, 2015) and the position of the academic vocabulary in this system. Different lexical layers in this system are explained as well as the underlying assumptions. Then, taking a critical position, we raise a number of criticisms against three different aspects of Nation’s classification. The first criticism involves the fact that the system has sacrificed function for form in developing the lexical layers. The second focuses on the problem of equating ‘academic words’ with Coxhead’s (2000) Academic Word List (AWL) and ‘high-frequency words’ with West’s (1953) General Service List (GSL). Finally, the system is criticized for the lack of an independent lexical layer for discipline-specific academic vocabulary by ignoring disciplinary variation at the level of academic words. The critical points raised in the paper can be useful for English for Academic Purposes (EAP) materials developers, teachers, test developers, and syllabus/curriculum designers.

scholarly journals How useful is eap vocabulary for esp? a corpus based case study

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
C Sutarsyah ◽  
Paul Nation ◽  
G Kennedy
Keyword(s):  
High Frequency ◽  
Low Frequency ◽  
Word List ◽  
Academic Vocabulary ◽  
Very High Frequency ◽  
Academic Texts ◽  
The University ◽  
General Service ◽  
Very High

This study compares the vocabulary of a single Economics text of almost 300,000 running words with the vocabulary of a corpus of similar length made up of a variety of academic texts. It was found that the general academic corpus used a very much larger vocabulary than the more focused Economics text. A small number of words that were closely related to the topic of the text occurred with very high frequency in the Economics text. The general academic corpus had a very large number of low frequency words. Beyond the words in West's General Service List and the University Word List, there was little overlap between the vocabulary of the two corpora. This indicates that as far as vocabulary is concerned, EAP courses that go beyond the high frequency academic vocabulary are of little value for learners with specific purposes. © 1994, Sage Publications. All rights reserved.

scholarly journals How useful is eap vocabulary for esp? a corpus based case study

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
C Sutarsyah ◽  
Paul Nation ◽  
G Kennedy
Keyword(s):  
High Frequency ◽  
Low Frequency ◽  
Word List ◽  
Academic Vocabulary ◽  
Very High Frequency ◽  
Academic Texts ◽  
The University ◽  
General Service ◽  
Very High

This study compares the vocabulary of a single Economics text of almost 300,000 running words with the vocabulary of a corpus of similar length made up of a variety of academic texts. It was found that the general academic corpus used a very much larger vocabulary than the more focused Economics text. A small number of words that were closely related to the topic of the text occurred with very high frequency in the Economics text. The general academic corpus had a very large number of low frequency words. Beyond the words in West's General Service List and the University Word List, there was little overlap between the vocabulary of the two corpora. This indicates that as far as vocabulary is concerned, EAP courses that go beyond the high frequency academic vocabulary are of little value for learners with specific purposes. © 1994, Sage Publications. All rights reserved.

scholarly journals Academic vocabulary in an English for Academic Purposes course

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sophia Skoufaki ◽  
Bojana Petrić
Keyword(s):  
Repetition Rate ◽  
High Frequency ◽  
Vocabulary Learning ◽  
English For Academic Purposes ◽  
Vocabulary Knowledge ◽  
Academic Vocabulary ◽  
Teaching Materials ◽  
Academic Tasks ◽  
Incidental Vocabulary ◽  
Materials Used

Academic vocabulary instruction can be beneficial to students in EMI universities since academic vocabulary knowledge predicts performance in academic tasks. With the aim to inform EAP materials design, this study examines the occurrence and repetition of high-frequency academic vocabulary in the printed teaching materials used in a presessional EAP course at a UK university. Findings indicate that even when EAP teachers do not design materials with the intention to include high-frequency AVL lemmas, as indicated from the interviews, they do include many. However, the average repetition rate of academic vocabulary was below 10 occurrences and, hence, unlikely to lead to incidental vocabulary learning. Implications for research and pedagogy are discussed.

scholarly journals A Corpus-based Study of English Vocabulary in Art Research Articles

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (8) ◽  
pp. 47
Author(s):  
Ping Wang
Keyword(s):  
High Frequency ◽  
Word List ◽  
Research Articles ◽  
Base Word ◽  
High Coverage ◽  
Academic Reading ◽  
Research Article ◽  
Additional Burden ◽  
Art Research ◽  
General Service

<p>The learning of English as a foreign language is an additional burden for art majors. This study aimed to examine high frequency words in art research articles to improve the efficiency of art majors’ English learning, especially their academic reading and writing. For this aim, the study built a corpus, analyzed data from art research articles and compared data with three base word lists. We found that the General Service List (GSL) and the Academic Word List (AWL) had a high coverage in our corpus, and there was a different high frequency word order in the Art Research Article Corpus (ARAC). These findings provide some implications for teaching English for art majors.  </p>

General and Academic Wordlists in English-Medium Instruction Programs

2019 ◽  
Vol 2018 (1) ◽  
pp. 177
Author(s):  
Howard Brown ◽  
Phil Bennett ◽  
Tim Stoeckel
Keyword(s):  
Language Proficiency ◽  
Marked Improvement ◽  
Word List ◽  
Academic Vocabulary ◽  
English Medium Instruction ◽  
General Service ◽  
Reading Texts

English-medium instruction (EMI) is a growing trend in Japan, and one common challenge of EMI implementation is providing adequate language-proficiency preparation for students, including the development of general and academic vocabulary. This study used a corpus of approximately 500,000 words taken from reading texts used in EMI courses at one university in order to evaluate the New General Service List (NGSL) and the New Academic Word List (NAWL) as study tools for students in this university’s program. Results showed that the NGSL provided 87.7% coverage of the corpus, a marked improvement over the original General Service List, which provided only 79.7% coverage. The NAWL performed less well, providing only an additional 3.0% coverage beyond that of the NGSL alone. Also, a full 17.4% of NAWL words did not appear in the corpus. This finding calls into question the value of the NAWL as a study tool for this program. 日本における英語による専門教育（EMI）は、増加傾向にある。EMIを実施する上で大学が取り組むべきことの一つは、学生の語学力強化であって、中でも語彙力強化が重要である。本稿では、ある大学のEMIコースで使用しているリーディングテキストから作成した約50万語のコーパスを使って、New General Service List（NGSL）とNew Academic Word List（NAWL）が当該プログラムの学生にとって適切な学習ツールであるかを調査した。その結果、NGSLは、コーパスのカバー率が87.7％で、初版のGeneral Service Listのカバー率79.7％から大きく改善されていることが分かった。NAWLの結果は、3.0％の上昇に留まった。また、NAWL単語の17.4％はコーパスに出現しなかった。このことから、当該プログラムに対するNAWLの活用価値への疑念が生じた。

scholarly journals The Academic Vocabulary List (AVL) coverage in the Brazilian academic written English corpus

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 146 ◽  
Author(s):  
Larissa Goulart
Keyword(s):  
Word List ◽  
English For Academic Purposes ◽  
Academic Vocabulary ◽  
Word Lists ◽  
Brazilian Students ◽  
Vocabulary List

This paper is divided in two parts, in the first one we address the different definitions of academic vocabulary, the role of academic vocabulary in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) teaching, and present some of the academic word lists compiled up to the present day. The second part of this paper is dedicated to one of the applications of these word lists: to determine the vocabulary profile of a corpus. Hence, the investigation conducted relies on the Academic Vocabulary List (AVL) to determine the use of academic vocabulary in a corpus of Brazilian students. It also addresses the issue of the different coverage provided by the AVL and the Academic Word List (AWL). The results indicate that the AVL is more representative of academic vocabulary in the corpus used as a reference.

scholarly journals An Examination of the New General Service List

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-61
Author(s):  
Tim Stoeckel ◽  
Keyword(s):  
High Frequency ◽  
American English ◽  
Low Frequency ◽  
Secondary Data ◽  
Word List ◽  
Secondary Data Source ◽  
Data Source ◽  
Word Selection ◽  
General Service ◽  
Word Frequencies

The New General Service List (NGSL; Browne, Culligan, & Phillips, 2013b) was published on an interim basis in 2013 as a modern replacement for West’s (1953) original General Service List (GSL). This study compared GSL and NGSL coverage of a 6-year, 114-million word section of the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), and used COCA word frequencies as a secondary data source to identify candidates for addition to the NGSL. The NGSL was found to provide 4.32% better coverage of the COCA than the GSL. Moreover, several candidates were identified for inclusion to the NGSL: three are current members of the NGSL’s companion list, the New Academic Word List (Browne, Culligan, & Phillips, 2013a); five are words whose usage has increased in recent years; and five are individual types that appear to have been miscategorized during the original development of the NGSL. Because NGSL word selection was based on not only empirical but also subjective criteria, the article calls for the addition of annotations to the NGSL to explain decisions regarding low-frequency NGSL constituents and high-frequency non-constituents.

ESP corpus design: compilation of the Veterinary Nursing Medical Chart Corpus and the Veterinary Nursing Wordlist

Corpora ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 125-140
Author(s):  
Yukiko Ohashi ◽  
Noriaki Katagiri ◽  
Katsutoshi Oka ◽  
Michiko Hanada
Keyword(s):  
Word List ◽  
English For Specific Purposes ◽  
Regular Expressions ◽  
Annotation Scheme ◽  
Corpus Design ◽  
As Species ◽  
Lexical Items ◽  
Access To Data ◽  
General Service

This paper reports on two research results: ( 1) designing an English for Specific Purposes (esp) corpus architecture complete with annotations structured by regular expressions; and ( 2) a case study to test the design to cater for creating a specific vocabulary list using the compiled corpus. The first half of this study involved designing a precisely structured esp corpus from 190 veterinary medical charts with a hierarchy of the data. The data hierarchy in the corpus consists of document types, outline elements and inline elements, such as species and breed. Perl scripts extracted the data attached to veterinary-specific categories, and the extraction led to creating wordlists. The second part of the research tested the corpus mode, creating a list of commonly observed lexical items in veterinary medicine. The coverage rate of the wordlists by General Service List (gsl) and Academic Word List (awl) was tested, with the result that 66.4 percent of all lexical items appeared in gsl and awl, whereas 33.7 percent appeared in none of those lists. The corpus compilation procedures as well as the annotation scheme introduced in this study enable the compilation of specific corpora with explicit annotations, allowing teachers to have access to data required for creating esp classroom materials.

scholarly journals Evaluation of working memory in relation to cochlear implant consonant speech discrimination

2021 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mai M. El Ghazaly ◽  
Mona I. Mourad ◽  
Nesrine H. Hamouda ◽  
Mohamed A. Talaat
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Speech Perception ◽  
High Frequency ◽  
Word List ◽  
Frequency Discrimination ◽  
Frequency Resolution ◽  
Speech Discrimination ◽  
Place Of Articulation ◽  
Strong Positive Relationship ◽  
Speech And Language Development

Abstract Background Speech perception in cochlear implants (CI) is affected by frequency resolution, exposure time, and working memory. Frequency discrimination is especially difficult in CI. Working memory is important for speech and language development and is expected to contribute to the vast variability in CI speech reception and expression outcome. The aim of this study is to evaluate CI patients’ consonants discrimination that varies in voicing, manner, and place of articulation imparting differences in pitch, time, and intensity, and also to evaluate working memory status and its possible effect on consonant discrimination. Results Fifty-five CI patients were included in this study. Their aided thresholds were less than 40 dBHL. Consonant speech discrimination was assessed using Arabic consonant discrimination words. Working memory was assessed using Test of Memory and Learning-2 (TOMAL-2). Subjects were divided according to the onset of hearing loss into prelingual children and postlingual adults and teenagers. Consonant classes studied were fricatives, stops, nasals, and laterals. Performance on the high frequency CVC words was 64.23% ± 17.41 for prelinguals and 61.70% ± 14.47 for postlinguals. These scores were significantly lower than scores on phonetically balanced word list (PBWL) of 79.94% ± 12.69 for prelinguals and 80.80% ± 11.36 for postlinguals. The lowest scores were for the fricatives. Working memory scores were strongly and positively correlated with speech discrimination scores. Conclusions Consonant discrimination using high frequency weighted words can provide a realistic tool for assessment of CI speech perception. Working memory skills showed a strong positive relationship with speech discrimination abilities in CI.

scholarly journals Portuguese Vocabulary Profile: uma lista de vocabulário a aprendentes do PL2/PLE, baseada nos corpora de aprendentes e de livros de ensino

2017 ◽  
pp. 387-400
Author(s):  
Shintaro Torigoe
Keyword(s):  
Pilot Study ◽  
Low Frequency ◽  
Word List ◽  
Elementary Level ◽  
Advanced Level ◽  
Learner Corpora ◽  
Word Classification ◽  
The Common ◽  
Pilot Version ◽  
Vocabulary List

This paper reports the second pilot study of the Portuguese Vocabulary Profile (PVP) project, a Portuguese vocabulary list for learners in Japan based on the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. Inspired by the English Vocabulary Profile (Capel, 2010, 2012), the PVP takes a learner-centric approach. For this study, the author modified the first pilot version which was constructed solely from learner corpora (Torigoe, 2016a) by comparing it with a word list based on a corpus of Portuguese textbooks published in Japan. The result is a broadened vocabulary for both the elementary and intermediate levels. The major improvement is that some intuitively basic words, including numbers, months of the year, foods, and facilities, which had been previously categorized as intermediate or advanced level words or which were missing from the first version due to their low frequency were correctly categorized as the elementary level words. However, the norm of word classification remains somewhat arbitrary given that the small size of both the input (learner corpora) and the comparative data (textbook corpus) does not allow for the use of statistical methods with less frequent words.

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