Abstract
This article focuses on vocabulary and writing at university level from the perspectives of 14 English as an additional language students studying at a New Zealand university. The students individually carried out an integrated reading and writing task and then participated in an interview which focused on their language learning background and academic studies through to vocabulary use in the reading and writing task. Data analysis showed that these students have an overall sense of the importance or need for academic vocabulary for their university studies. They demonstrated a high level of awareness of the academic audience for their writing and its impact on their word choice. Finally, these writers used a variety of techniques to incorporate academic or technical words into their essays. This article concludes by considering possible implications of the findings of this study for teaching second language writing and vocabulary in English for Academic Purposes programmes.
Introduction
Vocabulary is an important part of university life for students and for their lecturers, particularly in high-stakes writing and assessment. Errors in vocabulary use were rated as ‘seriously unacceptable’ by academic staff taking part in an early study by Santos (1988). Many English for Academic Purposes (EAP) programmes include academic vocabulary as part of their curriculum, using tools such as the Academic Word List (AWL) (Coxhead, 2000; 2011a). One of the reasons for focusing on this vocabulary is that it will support the students in their academic studies at university. That is, students will meet these words in their reading at university and may well encounter them in their lectures and tutorials. Other reasons include helping students increase their vocabulary size overall and raising students’ awareness of the importance of vocabulary at university.
Nation’s (2001) conceptualization of the knowledge second language learners need about vocabulary includes register (L2) (see Table 1 below). Coxhead (2007) reported that six out of seven writers reported register as an important aspect of vocabulary for productive use. The data from that study was drawn from the first seven interviews of the 14 reported in this article.
Knowledge Required for Production of a Word in Writing (adapted from Nation, 2001: 27)
This article builds on the findings from Coxhead (2007) by investigating the effect of the academic register on the lexical choices of this larger group of 14 second language writers. Another reason for focusing on vocabulary is that being able to use vocabulary appropriately and accurately in writing and speaking may indicate that these learners belong to the academic community (see Corson, 1985). Wray (2002: 203) also sees the use of language as a way to show membership of a particular group, in her case through the use of ‘formulaic sequences’ or lexical bundles. Ivanič (1998) found her mature English as a first language higher education students felt that ‘belonging to the academic community was a question of using particular words’ (1998: 270). Ivanič argued that the writers in her study used vocabulary to position themselves as part of a ‘particular intellectual process’ (1998: 271). For example, they used particular words to argue, define, evaluate and generalize in their writing. Ivanič called this process of developing an understanding of the ‘values, beliefs, goals, and activities’ of the academic community an ‘apprenticeship’ of participation (Ivanič, 2004: 253). The present study looks further into the use of academic writing conventions to typify academic or specialized vocabulary use in writing.
Research Questions
What effect does an academic context have on the lexical choices of the participants in this study?
What academic conventions do these writers employ to incorporate vocabulary into their writing?
Methodology
Fourteen students took part in this study. Eleven of them were first language speakers of Chinese, while the other three were Indian, Romanian, and Samoan. They had all completed a credit-bearing academic writing course as part of their university studies. The participants completed a reading and writing task as part of the study. They were asked to read a short text (approximately 400 words) and write an essay on a related topic (see Coxhead, 2011b for more on the methodology of this study). They then took part in a semi-structured interview about their language learning experiences, the reading and writing task, and their vocabulary use in writing. Appendix 1 contains the list of questions asked in the interviews. This article draws on the interview and participants’ written data, which was coded by the researcher and cross-checked by an experienced teacher of EAP and academic writing.
Findings and Discussion
Research Question 1: What effect does an academic context have on the lexical choices of the participants in this study?
Two threads were identified in the interview data in response to this research question. These threads are the selection of words to use in academic writing and the effect of an academic audience for writing. Let’s look at these two findings in turn.
Selecting Lexical Items to Use in Academic Writing
First, the participants in the study reported the need for technical, academic, or professional words to express their ideas in writing. The need for these lexical items is demonstrated in this quote from Joe from mainland China, who explained how his background and studies in Information Science affected his selection of words to use in his essay on internet banking,
Technical and professional words – I think about it, for example I-banking must be related to internet and I try to use those related technical words (Joe).
Ivy, another participant from mainland China, also uses the word ‘professional’ to describe the kinds of words she picked up from the text and would have liked to have used in her writing,
I really like “realistic”. It sounds really professional. “Allowed”, “facility”. I would like to use but didn’t get the opportunity (Ivy).
As a Media Studies student, Ivy was well aware of the need for vocabulary at university and how important reading was in her academic pursuits. As she explained,
In Media Studies I have to read for an assignment. First you don’t know the word but after 20 books you must know about the word (Ivy).
Danielle from mainland China had advice about vocabulary, reading and writing in academic studies for her fellow students. She had noted a difference between vocabulary use in speaking and writing at university. She explained,
I would suggest my friends to read some more academic writing and reading. They [lecturers] always use bigger [words]. In their speaking they don’t use it often but in our lecture notes, in lecture notes it appears often (Danielle).
Fale from Samoa echoed Danielle’s sentiments about the importance of reading and listening for vocabulary at university. She said,
The more we learn about these words, we listen or read we know those are the common words within the academic [sic] so we can see the levels, the different levels (Fale).
We conclude this section with a quote from Ivy, who had paid attention to some of the words in the reading task and decided which ones would be useful to her and which ones would not. She explained,
In my future studies in English this word [allocation] will be more useful more than carbon dioxide or emissions. Those words are good but not in relation to my study (Ivy).
So we can see that these writers were mindful of the vocabulary they considered useful in their academic context in terms of their selection (and rejection) of words to use in writing or to learn in general.
Addressing an Academic Audience
The key audience mentioned by the participants in this study was academic members of staff. Kenneth, a mainland Chinese student of Economics and Mathematics, makes this point clearly when he says,
It depends who I am writing for. If it is my lecturer, I will write some academic words. If a short essay, I will use some not very formal words (Kenneth).
The comparison between shorter pieces of writing and longer pieces for academic members of staff was also drawn by Chris (also from mainland China). He commented that the reading and writing task used in this study was more like an International English Language Testing System (IELTS) type task than tasks used by his lecturers for his university writing. In his Economics and Finance studies, he reported there was little writing, and in Business Communication he wrote reports.
Ivy also contrasted IELTS and university writing but from a different viewpoint. She focused on differences in advice she had been given by teachers in IELTS courses and advice from her Media Studies lecturer at university. She said,
When I take IELTS, my teachers actually said use short sentences. People understand. Long sentences make a grammar mistake. Try to make it short, clear meaning. Now I try to make long sentences to show academic idea in English. [My] Media Studies lecturer actually said to make sentences more complicated. I think it helped me to improve my English, my grammar level, when I read a lot. I don’t like long sentences because I am afraid I will make a grammar mistake (Ivy).
We can see some of the tension this contrasting advice causes for Ivy. On the one hand, she is responding to the need to express complex academic ideas for an academic audience in her writing and on the other hand, she is somewhat constrained by the need to lower her possible error rate in her writing.
For Fale, the Samoan writer in the study, academic vocabulary ‘is pretty important’. Fale started her nursing studies after her husband had already completed several years at university in Aotearoa/New Zealand. In her case, the academic audience for vocabulary was not just confined to university and her lecturers. It had begun to come home from university with her husband and become part of their everyday language in the home. She explained,
Ever since [my husband] came to university he use (sic) this word [perception]. It is getting common in the house because of him. We called it [“my husband’s] word”. He brought it home from university and uses it when we are talking together. [For example, he says], “Come on, that is your own perception” (Fale).
Jing, one of the three postgraduate writers in this study, reported on her experiences as part of a group of tutors and students who are first and second language speakers of English. This academic community provided an avenue for discussing vocabulary in the university context because of the common interests in Information Science and ‘interest in language’ (Jing). She describes this community as follows,
We got five maybe five lecturers from Germany and quite many postgraduate students are from China or from Asia countries so we have that [discussion about vocabulary] you know because everybody have their own different way to use those words. Everyone have their own vocabulary. Sometimes when we talk, we cannot understand each other because just sometimes the words we are using different words just sometimes because … we are using different words or different phrase. We just try to communicate and from that we can see, “Oh, that word …. but I don’t use it” (Jing).
This communication between members of Jing’s academic community provides support and encouragement for vocabulary development for the second language speakers. However, it also fosters discussion with first language speakers of English and helps raise awareness of language in the university context. As Jing explained,
[There are] many non English speaker [at the university] and it [is] like a competition going on … “arbitrary” and yeah especially this word “arbitrary”. One of student who is native kiwi [New Zealander] and … she said “I don’t think I have ever used very formal very big word” but I feel like it is very normal for me. We learn from the [academic] reading … and then somehow there is competition and also from when we talking when we have lunch together. We are talking, always some new words we don’t know so we discuss it (Jing).
These findings in this section relate quite closely to the findings by Ivanič (1998) with the English as a first language participants in her study in a university setting. Those students saw vocabulary use as a key element in belonging to an academic community. The present study’s findings also relate closely to Wray (2002) and Corson’s (1985) claims that belonging and identity are key concepts in settings where academic language is used. The participants in the current study appear to be highly aware of the different tasks and lexis needed for their academic studies, and the effect of an academic audience of lecturers and peers (as well as family in Fale’s case) on their lexical choices.
Research Question 2: What academic conventions do these writers employ to incorporate vocabulary into their writing?
To answer this research question, both the written and spoken data gathered for this study were analysed. Quotation from a source text was used by some of these writers as a way to include specific words in their writing. One such writer was Ivy, who said, ‘[Quoting is] a safe way of using academic words’. She used quotation for words that she thought she knew but was not confident enough in her knowledge of the words to use them without quotation. The words emission and allocations were incorporated in her text as part of a direct quotation (see Figure 1 below).
Ivy’s Use of ‘emission’ and ‘allocation’ in Her Essay Using Quotation
Ivy said she checked a dictionary to make sure she understood the meanings of both words before putting them into quotes. Sandy and Donna also used quotations in their essays. Sandy reported using the word ‘telework’ from the source text in a quote and explained that she was taking a risk by doing so. She said,
[I] used it [telework] in a quote because if I don’t understand but I think this quote is alright I will put it in.
Donna, on the other hand, used quotation as a safeguard of ideas. She said,
[I] quoted because it is better to keep original words, not change the meaning (Donna).
Donna regarded quotation as a ‘risky’ manoeuvre and said she would not use it unless absolutely pushed. Sandy and Donna reported similar checking procedures as Ivy before incorporating vocabulary into their writing through quotation.
Some of the writers used paraphrase as a technique to include particular words in their writing. However, some examples of paraphrase appear to be more akin to quotation. For example, Donna used sustain in the same way as the source text in the phrase ‘sustain our environment’. Liu had two phrases in his writing that were the same as the source text, ‘reduce the emission’ and ‘treat the cause’, but in the interview he assured the researcher that he had already known those phrases before doing the writing task. On the whole, Liu’s writing for the study drew more heavily on his background knowledge of the topic of the writing, global warming, than it did on the source text.
Jing was another writer who used summarization of the source text, as shown in Figure 2 below.
Jing’s Use of Summarization to Include the Word ‘emission’ in Her Essay
These writers display knowledge of academic writing conventions and use this knowledge to manipulate the language they use in their essays. Others, such as Kenneth and Chris, were far less adept or knowledgeable about academic writing conventions (see Coxhead, 2011c) for more on Kenneth’s views on plagiarism and Chris’s less successful use of the source text.
Implications for Pedagogy
One of the key implications of this study is the complex nature of the lexical decisions these participants make while writing. We can see that the selection of words for writing takes effort and draws on a range of experiences and knowledge for these writers. Discussing appropriate word use and register with second language writers in class is one way to support their decision making. The rich environment for word learning and discussion described by Jing illustrates the potential power of a work/study environment as a resource for learning vocabulary.
The participants in this study came from a variety of subject areas and had different demands placed on them for writing in English. Where possible, EAP teachers could invite university lecturing staff into their classrooms to discuss conventions and expectations of their subject areas. They could also give advice about which readings and vocabulary need to be focused on in order to meet the needs of particular learners.
Another implication is to consider the amount of practice and modelling second language writers receive on academic writing conventions. Writing classes could focus on using quoting and paraphrasing as ways to incorporate vocabulary into writing in academically recognized ways. Providing this sort of support may encourage writers to engage with the meaning and form of words initially, which may in turn increase confidence in using words in writing rather than using avoidance techniques.
Limitations of this Study
This small scale study of 14 writers contains data from mostly Chinese first language speakers. It also focuses on EAP students in an English as a first language context, so is perhaps of limited use to teachers working in English as a foreign language environments. A study on a wider scale might be able to show nuances in perceptions from writers with different academic backgrounds, first languages, or areas of study.
Further Research
One useful longitudinal study could look at the contribution of students’ majors to their lexical knowledge, both receptively and productively. Another study could look at other types of academic writing such as reports and consider their effect on vocabulary decision making and use. Finally, a partial replication of Santos (1985) in countries other than the United States may give us a more up-to-date view of lecturers’ views of academic vocabulary in academic writing.
Conclusion
This study illustrates a level of concern and focus on vocabulary by these second language writers. It also shows that an academic audience can have quite an impact on the lexical choices of writers and that academic writing conventions can be exploited by some writers to foster word use in writing.