Transcript How specific should we be?

Louis Rogers
www.macmillanskillful.com/

Current practice

General academic vocabulary

Beyond individual words

Practicalities

The broader picture
Current practices




How similar are different genres and
disciplines?
Academic writing - 15,559 Results
How do these style guides present academic
writing?
Bennett’s survey






Barrass, R. Scientists must write: A guide to
better writing for scientists, engineers and
students.
Brown, R, B. Doing your dissertation in business
and management: The reality of researching and
writing.
Fabb, N and Durant, A. How to write essays and
dissertations: A guide for English literature
students.
Kneale, P. Study skills for geography students: A
practical guide.
Northedge et al. The sciences good study guide.
Strong, S.I How to write law essays and exams.

General principles

Text structure

Grammatical issues

Lexical features

Other features

Large degree of consistency

Evidence, caution and restraint, incorporation
of sources

Formal, technical, objective

Structure – IMRD / IDC

Impersonal
General Academic
Vocabulary

The Academic Word List (Coxhead)

4 discipline areas

3.5 million word corpus

570 word families

West’s 1953 General Service List

75% = 2000 most frequent words

10-15% = academic vocabulary

10-15% = specialist vocabulary
Job
Examine
Quantitative
Qualitative
Omission
Persuasion
Classification
Determine

Multi-meaning words

Volume

Is one core list possible?

Moving beyond individual words

General Service List + AWL
Attribute
◦ Address, control, means
◦ Address-issue, control-group, by-means
Beyond individual words

Hyland 2008
◦
◦
◦
◦
Electronic Engineering
Biology
Business Studies
Applied linguistics

4 word bundles

50 most frequent
◦ On the other hand, as well as the, in the case of, at
the same time, the results of the

Half on one list only

Function of collocations
◦ Research-orientated = location, procedure,
quantification, description, topic
At the same time, the purpose of, a wide range of,
the size of the, the currency board system
◦ Text-orientated = transition, results, structure,
framing
In addition to the, it was found that, in the next
section, with the exception of

Participant-orientated = stance, engagement
It is possible that, as can be seen
Discipline
Researchorientated
Textorientated
Participantorientated
Biology
48.1%
43.5%
8.4%
Electrical
engineering
49.4%
40.4%
9.2%
Applied
linguistics
31.2%
49.5%
18.6%
Business
studies
36%
48.4%
16.6%



Sciences = research-orientated
Social sciences = text-orientated
90% Vs. 80%
and 9% Vs. 17%

Chunks not transferable

Functions are transferable

Relative weight of assessment type

Hyland and Tse (2007)
◦ marketing strategy
◦ learning strategy
◦ coping strategy

Durrant (2009)
◦ Life Sciences, Science and Engineering, SocialPsychological, Social-administrative, Arts and
Humanities
◦ 1000 two-word collocations across all 5 areas

Three quarters grammatical

Reporting pattern ‘verb + that’
◦ Argue, assumer, conclude, confirm, demonstrate,
emphasize, hypothesize, imply, indicate, note,
predict, reveal, show, speculate, suggest, suppose

Frequency and pattern combined

Transferability of use not investigated
◦ Based on, associate with, note that, defined as,
relationship between, effects on, indicate that

Strong evidence for disciplinary differences

Broad or subtle?
◦ Nation - theory is theory no matter what the
discipline


Are grammatical collocations and functions
more transferable?
Implications for institutions and teachers

Time for research

Contact with academics

Time for materials development

Financial constraints

Broad ESAP

Combined degrees
◦ Accountancy with; Management, Divinity, Law, IT,
Economics, Spanish, Biology, Broadcast media,
Geology, Psychology, HR, Finance, Leadership
Mandarin, Logistics, and Maths

EAP teacher knowledge

Variability of specialist areas
◦ Management and Business
Consistent areas - Finance, Accounting, Statistics and
Organisational Behaviour
Differences – Economics, Marketing, Computing,
Enterprise, Law, Foreign Languages

Challenge in defining genres



‘An expert is one who knows more and more
about less and less.’ Nicholas Murray Butler
Bachelors, Masters, PhD
The interdisciplinary nature of the Colleges as
a major stimulus to teaching and learning






Highly flexible programme
Extensive choice of subjects
Acquire transferable skills
Highly flexible undergraduate learning
environment
Cater for a variety of different student
interests and career aspirations
Develops analytical, quantitative, computing,
presentation and other transferable skills

Progression through years

Sandwich degrees

Placements

Knowledge economy

Skills to deal with a wide range of texts
◦ Purpose, audience, aims

Ability to identify patterns

Critically analyse these features

Mixed backgrounds, experiences, disciplines
allows for better analysis

Is there a core academic vocabulary?

Are the differences significant enough?

How specific can we be?

How specific should we be?
www.macmillanskillful.com/





Anthony, L. (2011). Products, processes and
practitioners: A critical look at the importance of
specificity in ESP. Taiwan International ESP Journal.
Vol 3:2 1-8
Bennett, K. (2009). English academic style manuals: A
survey. English for specific purposes. 8 p43-54.
Biber, D, Conrad, S and Leech, G. (2002). Student
Grammar of Spoken and Written English. Longman:
Harlow.
Coxhead, A. (2000). A new academic word list. TESOL
Quarterly, 34: 213-238.
Coxhead, A. (2011). The Academic Word List 10 Years
On: Research and Teaching Implications. TESOL
Quarterly, 45: 355-361




Dovey, T. (2006). What purposes specifically? Rethinking purposes and specificity in the context
of the ‘new vocationalism’, English for Specific
Purposes, 25(4), 387-402.
Durrant, P. (2009). Investigating the viability of a
collocation list for students of English for
academic purposes. English for specific
purposes. 28 p157-169.
Eldridge, J. (2008). “No, There Isn’t an ‘Academic
Vocabulary’ but…” TESOL Quarterly, 42: 109 –
113
Hyland, K., & Tse, P. (2007). Is there an
“Academic Vocabulary”?. TESOL Quarterly, 41:
235 – 253.




Hyland, K. (2008). As can be seen: Lexical bundles
and disciplinary variation. English for specific
purposes. 27 p4-21.
James, M.A. (2009). “Far” transfer of learning
outcomes from an ESL writing course: Can the gap be
bridged? English for Specific Purposes. 18 69-84
Jordan, R, R. (1998). English for Academic Purposes:
A guide and resource book for teachers. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Ramoroka, B, T. (2012). Teaching Academic Writing
for the Disciplines: How far can we be specific in an
EAP writing course? English Linguistics Research. 1:2
available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.5430/elr.vln2p33