1. How specific should we be?
Louis Rogers

3. Specificity Vs. Transferability
Current practice
General academic vocabulary
Beyond individual words
Practicalities
The broader picture

4. Current practices

5. 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
41 book’s analysed

6. Current practices
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.
Jordan, Bailey, Northedge – wider EAP guides. From UG to Phd

7. Current practices General principles Text structure Grammatical issues
Lexical features
Other features
General – clarity, economy, objectivity Text structure – advice about paragraph organisation, cohesion, coherence
Grammatical recommendations – active/passive, tense use, modality Lexical features – technical jargon, diction
Other features – referencing and citation, plagiarism , incorporation of theory

8. Current practice Large degree of consistency
Evidence, caution and restraint, incorporation of sources
Formal, technical, objective
Structure – IMRD / IDC
Impersonal
IMRD – Introduction, method, results, discussion humanities - Introduction, discussion, conclusion

9. General Academic Vocabulary

10. 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

11. General Academic Vocabulary
75% = 2000 most frequent words
10-15% = academic vocabulary
10-15% = specialist vocabulary

12. General Academic Vocabulary
Job Examine
Quantitative Qualitative
Omission Persuasion
Classification Determine
Awl – job qualitative

13. General Academic Vocabulary
Multi-meaning words
Volume Attribute
Is one core list possible?
Moving beyond individual words
General Service List + AWL
Address, control, means
Address-issue, control-group, by-means
Volume – science meaning
Issue – ‘flow out’ e.g. issue shares – only in business
Attribute – ‘feature’ in business verb ‘to accredit’ in science

14. Beyond individual words

15. Collocations Hyland 2008 4 word bundles 50 most frequent
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

16. Collocations 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
Framing = limiting conditions

17. Collocations Participant-orientated = stance, engagement
It is possible that, as can be seen
Discipline
Research-orientated
Text-orientated
Participant-orientated
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%
Engagement = address the reader directly

18. Collocation 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

19. Collocation Hyland and Tse (2007) Durrant (2009) marketing strategy
learning strategy
coping strategy
Durrant (2009)
Life Sciences, Science and Engineering, Social- Psychological, Social-administrative, Arts and Humanities
1000 two-word collocations across all 5 areas
Social-Psychological – education, nursing, psychology
Social-administrative – business, economics, politics, law
25 million word corpora

20. Collocation 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

21. In favour of specificity
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

22. Practicalities Time for research Contact with academics
Time for materials development
Financial constraints

23. Practicalities Broad ESAP Combined degrees EAP teacher knowledge
Accountancy with; Management, Divinity, Law, IT, Economics, Spanish, Biology, Broadcast media, Geology, Psychology, HR, Finance, Leadership Mandarin, Logistics, and Maths
EAP teacher knowledge

24. Practicalities 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

25. The bigger picture
‘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

26. The bigger picture 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

27. The bigger picture Progression through years Sandwich degrees
Placements
Knowledge economy

28. Implications 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
Dovey (2006)

29. Conclusion Is there a core academic vocabulary?
Are the differences significant enough?
How specific can we be?
How specific should we be?

31. Bibliography
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:
Coxhead, A. (2011). The Academic Word List 10 Years On: Research and Teaching Implications. TESOL Quarterly, 45:

32. Bibliography
Dovey, T. (2006). What purposes specifically? Re- thinking purposes and specificity in the context of the ‘new vocationalism’, English for Specific Purposes, 25(4),
Durrant, P. (2009). Investigating the viability of a collocation list for students of English for academic purposes. English for specific purposes. 28 p
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.

33. Bibliography
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
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: