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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>Hi Gill<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>I think you need both word frequency lists
and n-grams etc.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>A high frequency word may occur in a lot
of lower-frequency patterns, so if you only look at n-grams, you might miss the
word, because it did not feature in a high-frequency pattern…?<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>Best<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>Ramesh<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>
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<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=2 face=Tahoma><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Tahoma;font-weight:bold'>From:</span></font></b><font size=2
face=Tahoma><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Tahoma'>
corpora-bounces@uib.no [mailto:corpora-bounces@uib.no] <b><span
style='font-weight:bold'>On Behalf Of </span></b>Gill Philip<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>Sent:</span></b> 24 April 2008 09:01<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>To:</span></b> corpora@uib.no<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>Subject:</span></b> Re: [Corpora-List]
Criteria for an ESP Vocabulary List</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>dear Mahmud and list, <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>I agree with Adam here that vocabulary lists (aka word-lists) are
probably not the best place to start from, whether for ESP or for ESL in
general. The main reason for this is that, as we all know, the most
frequent words are also the most polysemous and occur in the widest variety of
structures. Certainly, collocations listings would be a more profitable place
to start, as collocates limit the extent of the polysemes' meanings and
behaviour; and generation of 3- 4- and 5-grams, skip-grams and
concgrams would give a very good indication of what phraseology to include
in the ESP syllabus. You could then extract vocabulary lists from
those n-grams, focusing on the forms (and hence the meanings) that are actually
used in the sector you're interested in.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>This focus on meanings, rather than word forms, is discussed with
reference to the AWL here:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>K. Hyland & P. Tse (2007) "Is there an academic
vocabulary?", Tesol Quarterly 41 (2) pp. 235-253<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Food for thought.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>best,<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Gill<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><span class=gmailquote><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>On 24/04/2008, <b><span style='font-weight:bold'>Adam
Turner</span></b> <<a href="mailto:adam.turner@gmail.com">adam.turner@gmail.com</a>>
wrote:</span></font></span> <o:p></o:p></p>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>With regards to ESP and ESL vocabulary learning, I am not sure that
frequency is always the best guide for compiling such lists and may not be as
useful to instructors as some researchers may think. As a classroom instructor,
I find that corpora research for education divorced from the context and genre
sometimes has limited uses. Unsuprisingly, I find that the most frequent words
are the ones that students already know. I read a highly detailed article on a
concordance analysis of engineering English with all kinds of frequency
statistics but very little of interest to me as an instructor despite the
amount of work it took to create the article. In other words, when we move from
description to teaching, the value of corpora analysis may differ.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>More useful, however, are collocation lists or lexical chunks within a
specific genre of writing and/or field of research. A word like method may
appear frequently but almost all students know this word. They may not,
however, be able to exploit all the collocations/frames/lexical chunks/fixed
expressions where it might occur in an ESP context: <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Collocation: novel/proposed/innovative/alternative/ -method. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Chunk/frame example with comparative: In contrast to the
conventional method A, our proposed method B improves accuracy/reliability by C
.....<br>
<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>In addition, I think it would be more valuable to have the students
work on and select the vocabulary words that they don't know than to have the
instructor prepare them for the students using electronic corpora or not.
I don't have the reference handy, but recent work has cast some doubt on
the universality of even well know academic word lists when searching across
disciplines. The example of words like "stress" being used very
diferently in mechanical or civil engineering than in other fields is an oft
cited example.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>I think it would depend on what kind of corpus you have and how
specific your audience is. If it is not too specific, you could get a lot of
use out of Google Scholar discipline specific searches to roughly gauge
frequency, for example. If it is highly specific corpus then students
could probably just select their own words from readings and give them to you.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>My students want to know not how frequent a word is but whether or not
that particular word is the appropriate one for that particular sentence in the
context of the paragraph they are writing in the context of the genre of
writing they are doing.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>I am however very convinced of the benefits of combining genre analysis
and concordancing, and of the value of examining how collocations and lexical
chunks behave within a particular genre and register of a type of writing in a
particular field. After teaching engineering writing classes, I do wonder
however whether there is such a thing as say "mechanical" engineering
in terms of the language of a discipline as the field can be quite diverse from
automotive engineering to CAD design to fluid dynamics. This goes back to the
old debate over how specific ESP teaching should be. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Even when vocabulary work is well informed by corpora, we often still
get these fill in the blank types of exercises from them that all teachers know
only test lower level recognition and passive vocabulary and that the students
can't always activate in productive skills like writing and speaking. We all do
them because they are easy to make and score.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Continuing a previous thread on the relationship between research and
teaching, I would be interested in hearing researcher's perspectives on why it
is so important to concentrate on frequency so much. I think more useful work
could be done at the phrase/frame/chunk level for classroom applications.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Adam<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div><span id="q_1197f1ac100a052b_1">
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><span class=e><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>On Thu, Apr 24, 2008 at 2:41 PM, True Friend <<a
href="mailto:true.friend2004@gmail.com" target="_blank">true.friend2004@gmail.com</a>>
wrote:</span></font></span><br>
<br>
<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
</span>
<blockquote style='border:none;border-left:solid #CCCCCC 1.0pt;padding:0cm 0cm 0cm 6.0pt;
margin-left:4.8pt;margin-right:0cm'>
<div><span id="q_1197f1ac100a052b_3">
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><br clear=all>
<span class=e>Hi</span><br>
<span class=e>I am working on a project of ESP. I have to generate vocabulary
lists. What is the best criteria to generate vocabulary list? Frequency or the
Range (occurance in number of files in corpus, or how wide the word is used in
corpus)? Keyword generators work on the basis of frequency i.e. antconc and
wordsmith tools etc. They generate a list by comparing with reference corpus a
list of words having more frequency in specialized corpus and less in reference
corpus. Frequency basis is fine but Range has its importance i.e. if a word is
most frequent but used only in 10 files is less important then a less frequent
word found in more files. So what are your suggestions. Personally I'll
prefer frequency because there is no software available to generate keywords on
the basis of Range or Ranking, or to arrange the words from a list on the basis
of their Range (i.e. more range will have number 1 and so on).</span><br>
<span class=e>Regards</span><br>
<span class=e><font color="#888888"><span style='color:#888888'>-- </span></font></span><font
color="#888888"><span style='color:#888888'><br>
<span class=e>محمد شاکر عزیز </span></span></font><br>
<br>
<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
</span>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span class=q><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>_______________________________________________</span></font></span><br>
<span class=q>Corpora mailing list</span><br>
<span class=q><a href="mailto:Corpora@uib.no" target="_blank">Corpora@uib.no</a></span><br>
<span class=q><a href="http://mailman.uib.no/listinfo/corpora" target="_blank">http://mailman.uib.no/listinfo/corpora</a></span><o:p></o:p></p>
</blockquote>
</div>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><br>
<br clear=all>
<br>
-- <br>
Adam Turner <br>
<br>
Director<br>
English Writing Lab<br>
<st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Hanyang</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType w:st="on">University</st1:PlaceType>
<br>
<st1:PlaceType w:st="on">Center</st1:PlaceType> for Teaching and Learning <br>
<st1:place w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">Seoul</st1:City>, <st1:country-region
w:st="on">Korea</st1:country-region></st1:place><br>
<a href="http://ctl.hanyang.ac.kr/writing/" target="_blank">http://ctl.hanyang.ac.kr/writing/</a>
<br>
_______________________________________________<br>
Corpora mailing list<br>
<a href="mailto:Corpora@uib.no">Corpora@uib.no</a><br>
<a href="http://mailman.uib.no/listinfo/corpora" target="_blank">http://mailman.uib.no/listinfo/corpora</a><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><br>
<br clear=all>
<br>
-- <br>
*********************************<br>
Dr. Gill Philip<br>
CILTA<br>
Università degli Studi di Bologna<br>
Piazza San Giovanni in Monte, 4<br>
40124 <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Bologna</st1:place></st1:City><br>
<st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Italy</st1:place></st1:country-region>
<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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