scholarly journals How to write medical abstracts? The rhetorical structure and phrases used in Epidemiology

2021 ◽  
Vol 33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana Luiza Pires de Freitas ◽  
Ana Eliza Pereira Bocorny
Keyword(s):  
High Frequency ◽  
Corpus Linguistics ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Formulaic Language ◽  
Function Words ◽  
Frequency Word ◽  
Rhetorical Structure ◽  
High Frequency Word ◽  
Review Analysis ◽  
And Function

Introduction: Abstracts are critical in medical contexts. They contain formulaic building blocks called Lexical Frames (LFs), which are high-frequency word sequences with variable slots that can be formed around collocation nodes. LFs are abundant in written academic discourse, and , for this reason, have great importance for the production of abstracts. Extensive research has been conducted on formulaic language, especially on medical genres. Fewer studies, however, have focused on LFs from specialty-specific corpora (.e.g., epidemiology) and their relationship with the rhetorical structure of abstracts. Objective: This study aims to fill this gap by describing the structure of epidemiology abstracts, presenting their rhetorical functions, and identifying the LFs that linguistically realize these functions to help researchers write more conventional abstracts. Methods: We put together three corpora of abstracts in the field, published in English in peer-reviewed journals, and combined genre analysis and Corpus Linguistics principles to identify the linguistic realizations of the rhetorical functions in the texts. First, the rhetorical structure was described; then, the LFs were identified and analyzed. Results: 92% of the texts follow a pre-established pattern, whose structure consists of five to nine sections. Eight saliently frequent nodes (study, result, method, conclusion, review, analysis, patients, and findings) around which the LFs are constructed were identified. Conclusion: Even though both the content and function words that make up the LFs show some variation, it is possible to notice that the LFs elicited typify the linguistic realizations of the corresponding sections' rhetorical functions and, thus, are suitable to the observation of a pattern. For that reason, the data obtained in this study were used to inform the creation of a support framework for the writing of specialty-specific medical abstracts.

scholarly journals Investigating vocabulary in academic spoken English: Corpora, teachers, and learners

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Yen Dang
Keyword(s):  
High Frequency ◽  
Corpus Linguistics ◽  
Word List ◽  
Vocabulary Knowledge ◽  
Frequency Word ◽  
High Frequency Word ◽  
Spoken English ◽  
Foreign Language Learners ◽  
L2 Learners ◽  
High Frequency Words

<p>Understanding academic spoken English is challenging for second language (L2) learners at English-medium universities. A lack of vocabulary is a major reason for this difficulty. To help these learners overcome this challenge, it is important to examine the nature of vocabulary in academic spoken English.  This thesis presents three linked studies which were conducted to address this need. Study 1 examined the lexical coverage in nine spoken and nine written corpora of four well-known general high-frequency word lists: West’s (1953) General Service List (GSL), Nation’s (2006) BNC2000, Nation’s (2012) BNC/COCA2000, and Brezina and Gablasova’s (2015) New-GSL.  Study 2 further compared the BNC/COCA2000 and the New-GSL, which had the highest coverage in Study 1. It involved 25 English first language (L1) teachers, 26 Vietnamese L1 teachers, 27 various L1 teachers, and 275 Vietnamese English as a Foreign Language learners. The teachers completed 10 surveys in which they rated the usefulness of 973 non-overlapping items between the BNC/COCA2000 and the New-GSL for their learners in a five-point Likert scale. The learners took the Vocabulary Levels Test (Nation, 1983, 1990; Schmitt, Schmitt, & Clapham, 2001), and 15 Yes/No tests which measured their knowledge of the 973 words.  Study 3 involved compiling two academic spoken corpora, one academic written corpus, and one non-academic spoken corpus. Each contains approximately 13-million running words. The academic spoken corpora contained four equally-sized sub-corpora. From the first academic spoken corpus, 1,741 word families were selected for the Academic Spoken Word List (ASWL). The coverage of the ASWL and the BNC/COCA2000 in the four corpora and the potential coverage of the ASWL for learners of different vocabulary levels were determined.  Six main findings were drawn from these studies. First, in the first academic spoken corpus, the ASWL and its levels had slightly higher coverage in certain disciplinary sub-corpora than in the others. Yet, the list provided around 90% coverage of each sub-corpus. It helps learners to achieve 92%-96% coverage of academic speech depending on their levels. Second, the BNC/COCA2000 is the most suitable general high-frequency word list for L2 learners from the perspectives of corpus linguistics, teachers, and learners. It provided higher coverage than the GSL and the BNC2000, and had more words known by learners and perceived as being useful by teachers than the New-GSL. Third, general high-frequency words, especially the most frequent 1,000 words, provided much higher coverage in spoken corpora than written corpora in both academic and non-academic discourse. Fourth, despite the importance of general high-frequency words, a reasonable proportion of the learners had insufficient knowledge of these words, which highlights the importance of a word list which is adaptable to learners’ proficiency like the ASWL. Fifth, lexical coverage had significant but small correlations with teacher perception of word usefulness and learner vocabulary knowledge. Sixth, the Vietnamese L1 teachers had the highest correlation between the teacher ratings of word usefulness and the learner vocabulary knowledge. Next came the various L1 teachers, and then the English L1 teachers.  This thesis also provides theoretical, pedagogical, and methodological implications of these findings so that L2 learners can gain better support in their vocabulary development and achieve better comprehension of academic spoken English.</p>

scholarly journals Investigating vocabulary in academic spoken English: Corpora, teachers, and learners

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Yen Dang
Keyword(s):  
High Frequency ◽  
Corpus Linguistics ◽  
Word List ◽  
Vocabulary Knowledge ◽  
Frequency Word ◽  
High Frequency Word ◽  
Spoken English ◽  
Foreign Language Learners ◽  
L2 Learners ◽  
High Frequency Words

<p>Understanding academic spoken English is challenging for second language (L2) learners at English-medium universities. A lack of vocabulary is a major reason for this difficulty. To help these learners overcome this challenge, it is important to examine the nature of vocabulary in academic spoken English.  This thesis presents three linked studies which were conducted to address this need. Study 1 examined the lexical coverage in nine spoken and nine written corpora of four well-known general high-frequency word lists: West’s (1953) General Service List (GSL), Nation’s (2006) BNC2000, Nation’s (2012) BNC/COCA2000, and Brezina and Gablasova’s (2015) New-GSL.  Study 2 further compared the BNC/COCA2000 and the New-GSL, which had the highest coverage in Study 1. It involved 25 English first language (L1) teachers, 26 Vietnamese L1 teachers, 27 various L1 teachers, and 275 Vietnamese English as a Foreign Language learners. The teachers completed 10 surveys in which they rated the usefulness of 973 non-overlapping items between the BNC/COCA2000 and the New-GSL for their learners in a five-point Likert scale. The learners took the Vocabulary Levels Test (Nation, 1983, 1990; Schmitt, Schmitt, & Clapham, 2001), and 15 Yes/No tests which measured their knowledge of the 973 words.  Study 3 involved compiling two academic spoken corpora, one academic written corpus, and one non-academic spoken corpus. Each contains approximately 13-million running words. The academic spoken corpora contained four equally-sized sub-corpora. From the first academic spoken corpus, 1,741 word families were selected for the Academic Spoken Word List (ASWL). The coverage of the ASWL and the BNC/COCA2000 in the four corpora and the potential coverage of the ASWL for learners of different vocabulary levels were determined.  Six main findings were drawn from these studies. First, in the first academic spoken corpus, the ASWL and its levels had slightly higher coverage in certain disciplinary sub-corpora than in the others. Yet, the list provided around 90% coverage of each sub-corpus. It helps learners to achieve 92%-96% coverage of academic speech depending on their levels. Second, the BNC/COCA2000 is the most suitable general high-frequency word list for L2 learners from the perspectives of corpus linguistics, teachers, and learners. It provided higher coverage than the GSL and the BNC2000, and had more words known by learners and perceived as being useful by teachers than the New-GSL. Third, general high-frequency words, especially the most frequent 1,000 words, provided much higher coverage in spoken corpora than written corpora in both academic and non-academic discourse. Fourth, despite the importance of general high-frequency words, a reasonable proportion of the learners had insufficient knowledge of these words, which highlights the importance of a word list which is adaptable to learners’ proficiency like the ASWL. Fifth, lexical coverage had significant but small correlations with teacher perception of word usefulness and learner vocabulary knowledge. Sixth, the Vietnamese L1 teachers had the highest correlation between the teacher ratings of word usefulness and the learner vocabulary knowledge. Next came the various L1 teachers, and then the English L1 teachers.  This thesis also provides theoretical, pedagogical, and methodological implications of these findings so that L2 learners can gain better support in their vocabulary development and achieve better comprehension of academic spoken English.</p>

scholarly journals Making a little go a long way: A corpus-based analysis of a high-frequency word and some pedagogical implications for young Spanish learners

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Belén Labrador de la Cruz
Keyword(s):  
Short Stories ◽  
High Frequency ◽  
Frequency Word ◽  
Parallel Corpus ◽  
High Frequency Word ◽  
Contrastive Study

This study explores the different uses of the word little, its equivalents in Spanish and its teaching to young Spanish learners. First, it aims at analyzing the lexico-grammatical behavior of little in a corpus of children’s short stories, where its prevailing use, preceding countable nouns, has been found to be much more frequent than in other domains and registers. A contrastive study follows, which examines how little has been translated in an English-Spanish parallel corpus; the results show that diminutives constitute an important equivalent. Finally, some didactic implications are proposed, with the application of corpus-based findings to the teaching of English to young Spanish learners from an approach that combines lexical syllabi and story-based methodologies.

The Preview of Word N+2 Influences the High Frequency Word N+1 Processing in Chinese Reading

2015 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 143
Author(s):  
Xuejun BAI ◽  
Yongsheng WANG ◽  
Zhiying GUO ◽  
Xiaolei GAO ◽  
Guoli YAN
Keyword(s):  
High Frequency ◽  
Chinese Reading ◽  
Frequency Word ◽  
High Frequency Word

Comparative Study to Identify High-Frequency Words in Printed Materials

1983 ◽  
Vol 57 (3) ◽  
pp. 807-810 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dennis J. Kear ◽  
Marsha A. Gladhart
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Study ◽  
High Frequency ◽  
Second Grade ◽  
Sight Reading ◽  
Basal Reading ◽  
Frequency Word ◽  
High Frequency Word ◽  
Grade Levels ◽  
Word Lists ◽  
Printed Materials

This study examined (1) the percentage of agreement between high-frequency word lists used for developing sight reading vocabularies and (2) whether a list of words common to a majority of six high-frequency word lists accounts for a high percentage of the words found in the preprimer through second grade levels of five popular basal reading series. Six high-frequency word lists used to develop the reading sight vocabularies of beginning readers were selected. Of the 501 different words contained on these six word lists 202 words appeared on four or more of the lists. These 202 words accounted for 63.7% to 75.6% of the total words used in the preprimer through the second grade levels of five popular basal reading series.

scholarly journals High frequency word entrainment in spoken dialogue

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ani Nenkova ◽  
Agustín Gravano ◽  
Julia Hirschberg
Keyword(s):  
High Frequency ◽  
Spoken Dialogue ◽  
Frequency Word ◽  
High Frequency Word
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