探討應用語言學期刊論文中學術字彙之使用

Exploring the Use of Vocabulary from Academic Word List in Applied Linguistics Journal Articles

黃茹玉(Ju-Yu Huang)

指導教授 ： 張寶玉

國立清華大學/人文社會學院/外國語文學系/碩士(2007年)

https://doi.org/10.6843/NTHU.2007.00367

摘要

本研究旨在探討應用語言學期刊中學術字彙表(Academic Word List, AWL, Coxhead, 2000)中字彙之應用。藉由從五個應用語言學期刊—英語教學季刊(TESOL Quarterly)，現代語言期刊(The Modern Language Journal)，應用語言學期刊(Applied Linguistics)，語言學習期刊 (Language Learning)和第二語言研究期刊(Second Language Research)—所蒐集的兩百篇論文，我們建立了一個約一百五十萬字的應用語言學資料庫。 以此資料庫為基礎，本論文探討以下主題：一、學術字彙(AWL word-forms)在應用語言期刊論文中之使用頻率；二、研究應用語言學資料庫高頻率學術字彙的動名詞搭配(V-N collocation)和四字字彙詞組(four-word lexical bundle)；三、分析其中字彙詞組在期刊論文四個章節(Introduction-Method-Result-Discussion)之修辭功能；四、分析出高頻率的非學術內容字彙(non-AWL content word-forms)；五、調查英語系新生和第二外語教學的研究生對於列在前一百非學術字彙之熟悉度。本研究中選擇學術字彙、動名詞搭配、字彙詞組和非學術字彙的標準有以下三項。一、每個學術字彙或非學術字彙在資料庫的出現頻率必須高於五十遍，並且在五個期刊論文中的每一期刊出現五次以上；二、動名詞搭配和四字字彙詞組至少含有一個學術字彙(AWL word-form)；三、動名詞搭配在資料庫中必須至少出現十次以上，字彙詞組則須出現十五次以上。 本研究結果顯示學術字彙(AWL word-forms)於應用語言學資料庫中所佔比例達11.3%，意指學術字彙在應用語言學領域佔很高的比例。這些學術字彙當中符合本研究選字標準的477個字已佔了整個資料庫的8.8%，證明了這些高頻字彙有益於應用語言學領域的學生。此外，在前100學術字彙中含有41個動名詞搭配和26個四字字彙詞組；一個學術字彙可形成不同的動名詞搭配或字彙詞組，但我們發現同一個學術字彙所產生的不同動名詞搭配，最常使用在論文的不同章節(IMRD)，然而同一個學術字彙所產生的不同字彙辭組卻最常用於同一個章節中，這是因為動詞和名詞的意思可決定該動名詞所出現的章節，所以動名詞搭配中有動詞和名詞，較容易出現在不同章節。接著，就字彙詞組的修辭功能而言，同一個學術字彙所產生的字彙詞組通常表現同一個修辭功能，然而不同字彙所產生的字彙詞組也可表現相同的修辭功能，這意味著字彙的本質可以影響字彙詞組所展現的修辭功能。另外，本研究也分析出128個非學術字彙，當中包含很多應用語言學之專用字彙，如semantics, pragmatics, syntax等。最後，有關學生對非學術字彙中的高頻字彙熟悉度，我們發現第二外語教學的研究生的熟悉度高於英語系新生，這是因為研究生比起新生具有更多應用語言學的背景知識。 本論文的結果提供學生、老師和課程規劃者珍貴的資料。在專業英語(English for Specific Purposes, ESP)的課程中，477個學術字彙和128個非學術字彙的高頻字可以當作字彙學習的目標；教師可以將動名詞搭配、字彙詞組以及它的修辭功能等資料融入學生的寫作練習，以期讓學生明瞭如何在他們的寫作中應用這些搭配詞或詞組。未來的研究則可以進一步探討將這些資料應用在教室教學之成效，並且檢驗這些資料對應用語言學領域學生的實用性。

關鍵字

語料庫 ； 學術字彙表 ； 搭配詞 ； 字彙詞組 ； 修辭功能

並列摘要

This study aims to address the use of academic vocabulary from the Academic Word List (AWL) (Coxhead, 2000) by compiling an “Applied Linguistics Corpus (ALC)” which consists of approximately 200 research papers published in five international journals in the field of applied linguistics: (1) TESOL Quarterly, (2) The Modern Language Journal, (3) Applied Linguistics, (4) Language Learning, and (5) Second Language Research. The ALC contains around 1.5 million running words.
The goals of this study are, first, to explore the frequency of the AWL vocabulary used in the applied linguistics journal articles; second, to investigate the verb-noun collocations and lexical bundles of the high frequency AWL vocabulary in the ALC; third, to analyze the rhetorical functions for the high frequency lexical bundles in Swales’ (1990) IMRD sections (Introduction- Method – Result – Discussion); fourth, to identify the non-AWL content vocabulary that occurs frequently in the ALC; and finally, to examine to what extent English-major freshmen and TEFL-program graduate students are familiar with the top 100 non-AWL vocabulary. Some criteria for selecting the AWL vocabulary, V-N collocations, four-word lexical bundles, the non-AWL content vocabulary in the ALC are as follows. First, each AWL or non-AWL word-form has to occur at least 50 times in the entire ALC and five times in each of the five journals. Second, the V-N collocations and four-word lexical bundles should include one of the top 100 AWL word-forms or the headword of their word families. Third, the V-N collocations should occur at least 10 times in the entire corpus and once in each of the five journals while the four-word lexical bundles should occur at least 15 times in the ALC and once in each of the five journals.
The findings show that the AWL word-forms account for 11.3% in the entire ALC, which implies the AWL word-forms account for high percentage in the field of applied linguistics. The 477 AWL word-forms make up 8.8% in the whole corpus, suggesting that the 477 word-forms are useful for learners in the field of applied linguistics due to their high frequency. Moreover, 41 V-N collocations and 26 four-word lexical bundles are identified among the top 100 AWL word-forms or the headword of their word families in the ALC. Different V-N collocations derived from the same
AWL word-form occur most frequently in different sections in research articles (RAs) but different bundles derived from the same AWL word-form most frequently occur in the same sections. This suggests that the verb and noun in the V-N collocations decide which RA section they most frequently occur in because the meanings of verb and noun would influence this decision. In terms of rhetorical functions of lexical bundles, almost all of the bundles with the same AWL word-form perform the same function in one RA section. Some AWL word-forms generate different bundles but all of the bundles perform common functions. The findings imply that the nature of a word would influence how their bundles perform the rhetorical functions. Furthermore, 128 non-AWL content word-forms are identified in the ALC and they include some specialized terms such as semantics, pragmatics, syntax in the applied linguistics field. Finally, the TEFL-program graduate students are more familiar with the top 100 non-AWL content word-forms than English-major freshmen because graduate students understand more background knowledge of applied linguistics field than freshmen.
The contribution of the present study is to provide valuable data for learners, teachers and course designers in the field of applied linguistics. In ESP courses, the 477 AWL word-forms and 128 non-AWL content word-forms can be the goal for vocabulary learning. Moreover, teachers can incorporate the V-N collocations and lexical bundles with its rhetorical functions into writing exercises for students to practice. In this way, students can become aware of how to use collocations and bundles in their writing. Future research can investigate the effectiveness of the application of the vocabulary, collocations or bundles in classroom teaching and examine their usefulness for students in the field of applied linguistics.

並列關鍵字

corpus ； AWL ； Collocations ； Lexical bundles ； Rhetorical functions

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