Overview

Exploring Academic Vocabulary: Form, Meaning, Use offers a practical roadmap for mastering academic vocabulary in written texts. It is the first textbook in the field entirely grounded on corpus research, empowering students to confidently use corpus data for language learning. Focusing on 20 words drawn from leading academic word lists, the book examines each item in terms of form, meaning, and use, uncovering patterns often overlooked in traditional vocabulary instruction. Buckingham highlights the unique features that distinguish academic vocabulary from spoken language and fiction, deepening readers’ understanding of register and discourse. Each word is illustrated with authentic examples constructed with the authoritative Corpus of Contemporary Academic English (COCA), supported by carefully selected corpus visuals and accompanying exercises with clear answer keys, allowing students to actively test and refine their learning. Through extensive research from COCA, the book also reveals important lexico-grammatical features specific to each word, including the use of negation, modal verbs, the passive voice, typical collocations, short phrases, and discourse-level functions. Adopting a data-driven learning approach, the book provides empirical evidence of how academic vocabulary functions in context, helping learners become more flexible and precise in their academic writing. Hands-on and accessible, this book is an essential resource for for upperintermediate to advanced users of English, and teachers. It serves as the ideal companion to both Academic IELTS preparation and independent study.

Full Product Details

9781041016021

Table of Contents

Reviews

""With a clear pedagogical focus, Exploring academic vocabulary is essential textbook for anyone interesting in applying corpus technologies to classroom practice. I would recommend this resource to language data enthusiasts, (second) language learners, teachers and researchers."" Associate Professor Peter Crosthwaite, The University of Queensland, Australia ""This innovative textbook seamlessly bridges theory and practice, empowering learners to explore academic vocabulary independently through hands-off DDL. Its clear, well-structured approach makes corpus linguistics both accessible and valuable for EFL and EAP students in IELTS or EMI contexts."" Professor Jihua Dong, Shandong University, China ""This book on learning academic vocabulary provides hands on, corpus-based, rich opportunities to engage with words which are important to understand and use accurately. It provides clear information about meanings in academic contexts, frequency, common grammatical patterns and how to use them in context. This is a very useful book."" Professor Averil Coxhead, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand

Author Information

Louisa Buckingham lectures in applied linguistics at the University of Auckland. Her previous Routledge publications include Doing a Research Project in English Studies: A guide for students (2015) and Interdisciplinary Practices in Academia: Writing, Teaching and Assessment (2023). She has also published on language development in academic contexts, elderly migrant populations and in young families, and serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development.

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