A Corpus-Based Mechanical Engineering Academic Word List

Abstract

Most learners of a second or foreign language fall short of necessary academic vocabulary, and the problem has become increasingly evident in the context of technical fields such as mechanical engineering. This paper reports on the development of a corpus-based academic word list for mechanical engineering graduate students from a total of 120 academic articles collected from four internationally recognized journals. The created corpus called Mechanical Engineering Academic Corpus (MEAC) has 755,794 words. With Coxhead's word selection criteria and Range software programme for lexical analysis, a 398-word/289-word-family Mechanical Engineering Academic Word List (MEAWL) was constructed. Comparisons show that MEAWL is only approximately half of Coxhead's Academic Word List (AWL) in size (289 word families vs.570 word families) but has a higher coverage in MEAC than AWL (12.82% vs.11.95%), and therefore may be more suitable for mechanical engineering students, who will spend much less time on vocabulary learning. The practical value of MEAWL such as its pedagogical implication in material development is also discussed.