A Functional Representation of Academic Vocabulary

Abstract

Focus: This is a study of the functions performed by a specialised vocabulary in specialised texts. The vocabulary being studied is the list of 570 sub-technical word families (termed academic words) appearing in Coxhead's (2000) Academic Word List (AWL) and the texts are journals and university textbooks. In this respect, the study is dealing with academic words appearing in academic writing. The AWL was developed through statistical analysis of word occurrence in an academic corpus. This study builds on Coxhead's findings to examine why academics writing in a wide range of subject areas make use of the same academic words. The findings show that academic vocabulary occurs largely because it describes the things that most academics do regardless of their discipline and because it signals the serious, formal nature of academic enquiry. Methods: In the study, the occurrences of all the academic words appearing in selected academic texts are assigned to functional categories. Each category represents a function common to a wide range of academic texts. The study presents the functional categories as a classification system for explaining the presence of academic words in academic writing. This classification system is applied to a series of texts (six research articles and four textbook chapters) representing two text types and four academic disciplines (arts, commerce, law and science). A comparison is also made between a research article and a non-academic text (a newspaper article) which share common subject matter. Findings: There are four main findings of this study. Firstly, six functional categories are identified (some with subcategories assigned) which account for all the occurrences of academic words in texts across a range of academic disciplines and text types. These categories are metatextual, extratextual, intratextual, scholarly process, states of affairs, and relations between entities. Observable differences are seen in the representation of functional categories between different sections within a text, different texts in the same subject area, texts in different subject areas, and different text types. Secondly, the analysis of two additional functions (authoritative and carrier word), as seen operating in one of the texts, indicates that firstly, a significant proportion of academic word use is not obligatory (i.e. synonyms exist which are widely used in English) and thus academic words can be assumed to be chosen in favour of more commonly used words; and secondly, a significant proportion of academic words are nominalisations of recurring ideas within a text through the carrier word function. Thirdly, a comparison of a research article and a newspaper article dealing with similar subject matter indicates substantial differences between the two texts in terms of both the statistical occurrence and functional occurrence of academic words. These differences reflect texts written by and for people in two distinct discourse communities, one specialist and the other non-specialist, and differing expectations regarding the purpose of each text. Fourthly, many academic words are multifunctional. This means that they assume different primary functions in different situations. In light of this, it is not possible to assign each of the 570 academic words in the AWL to a single functional category. Identification of a few cofunctional words in the AWL (synonyms assuming comparable functions in academic writing) suggests an area of study for future research. Implications: The findings have three implications for those involved in preparing learners of English for academic study. Firstly, a learning programme should include exposure to texts rich in academic language representative of the six functional categories. Secondly, whole academic texts should be part of the reading material to represent patterns of academic word occurrence within a text. Thirdly, texts should be examined from different perspectives: in terms of the textual layer, attending to coherence, cohesion, and links to the extratextual context; in terms of the ideational layer, reflecting text as a vehicle for new ideas on the relationship between important entities as indicated through a process of scholarly enquiry; and in terms of the interpersonal layer, shaping the nature of the roles assumed and expectations held by the various participants in the discourse process - writers, peer reviewers and readers. In concluding remarks, the study proposes a tentative subject-independent model of academic writing reflecting the complex interrelationship between functional processes operating within a text, as observed through the functional classification of academic vocabulary in texts.