A Comparative Study On AWL In English M.A. Theses And Applied Linguistics Journal Articles Based On AWL

Learning academic vocabulary is regarded as a useful and important learning method for non-English learners with academic purposes. On the basis of a computerized academic corpus, the Academic Word List (AWL)(Coxhead,2000) was systematically established. The570word families, which supposedly represent high frequency academic words across a range of disciplines, have provided quite valuable reference for vocabulary pedagogy and inspired the development of some more specialized academic word lists. Extensive analysis of corpora has revealed the prevalence and importance of academic vocabulary in academic and research settings. One of the objectives of postgraduate English teaching in China is to facilitate postgraduate students with adequate language skills so that they can succeed in academic learning and writing, this study is designed to:(1) profile the presence of the AWL items in ALC1and ALC2of applied linguistics field;(2) explore some ways to effectively teach the AWL items which can provide suggestions to better prepare Chinese postgraduates for their academic learning.Research findings show that:(1) The coverage of AWL in English M. A. theses is consistent with the coverage of the journals of applied linguistics and the AWL made by Coxhead.(2) In the two corpora, the coverage of Abstract, Introduction, and Literature Review sections are much higher than Coxhead’s10%, but the Results section in both two corpora is relatively lower than these three sections, which is the lowest section of all. The coverage of AWL in Abstract, Introduction and the Literature Review section of ALC2corpus is a little higher than these sections in ALC1.While, the coverage in Methods, Results and Conclusion sections of ALC2is the same or a little lower than the coverage in these sections of ALC1(3) Compared the20most frequent words in the six sections of the ALC1with the20most frequent words in ALC2, only the minority of items occurred more than three sections. The majority of items occurred only in one or two sections. There was low coincidence, the lowest being in the Abstract section (30%), and the highest in Literature Review sections (55%).(4) Compared the top100families in ALC1and ALC2with those in Coxhead’s Sub-list1, which includes the60most frequent families in the AWL, there are only19words in ALC1and21in ALC2that coincide with Coxhead’s items in Sub-list1.