基于语料库的学术词表有效性研究

A corpus-based research on the validity of Academic Word Lists

本研究以语料库为基础,以Coxhead(2000)学术词表(AWL)和环境科学学术词表(EAWL)为代表,对通用学术词表及专业学术词表进行对比分析,尝试探讨学术词表有效性的检验标准和方法。研究同时提出检测手段,即建立测试语料库,检验词表在测试语料库和单篇测试语料中的覆盖率,利用统计学假设检验方法检验词表的有效性。检验结果显示,专业学术词表比通用学术词表在专业英语学习中更有效。

This paper reports a corpus-based study which makes a tentative attempt to establish testing criteria for the validity of academic word lists through a comparative analysis between general academic word lists,represented by Coxhead’s(2000)Academic Word List(AWL)and field-specific word lists,represented by Environmental Academic Word List(EAWL).Testing methods are also brought forward in this research.Firstly,three test corpora are established.Secondly,both coverage of AWL and that of EAWL in these corpora are analyzed and then in 20 articles in one testing corpus.Lastly,a statistical hypothesis is also used to verify the validity of EAWL,for which these methods prove to be highly effective.Based on the criteria,the EAWL proved to be more applicable than the AWL in environmental academic studies.The testing criteria proposed in the study are expected to be used as a reference for similar studies in the future.