Establishment Of A Medical Academic Word List

Academic vocabularies, the lexical terms widely used in academic texts but not those subject-specific terminologies, has attracted a great deal of interest from applied linguists as well as language educators, especially those in the field of English for Specific Purposes, owing to its critical role in academic discourse. For learners with academic purposes, there is a specific and apparent need of acquiring academic vocabulary when they read research papers, listen to academic lectures, write academic papers or present oral presentations in their own fields. Many studies have been conducted on academic vocabulary, for this type of vocabulary has been proved important and problematic to most learners with academic purposes. Some researchers even argue that it is the knowledge of academic words that differentiates the performance of academically well-prepared college students from that of the under-prepared with various backgrounds.Academic vocabulary, with its importance in different disciplines, should be given priority in vocabulary study by ESP instructors. It is a good start to refer to academic word lists when instructors prepare vocabulary programs for the learners. Complete and reliable academic word lists, as a major source of vocabulary teaching and learning, not only help instructors to select this important set of lexical terms in the curriculum preparation but also enable...