Developing an academic word list for mathematics research articles: A corpus-based approach

Abstract

In the burgeoning field of English for specific purposes (ESP), understanding the vocabulary demands of specialised disciplines is crucial for both language instruction and academic success. This study specifically addresses the gap in vocabulary resources for the mathematics discipline, an area less explored compared to other sciences. To this end, a corpus of 27.5 million words from 4000 mathematics research articles (RAs) was compiled using systematic data collection and analysis procedures. The study aimed to develop an academic word list tailored to the needs of students and researchers in mathematics. Our findings indicated that while general service words comprise the bulk of the vocabulary in the examined RAs, a significant portion of the words in mathematic RAs includes discipline-specific academic vocabulary not covered by traditional academic word lists. Major findings revealed that our newly developed list of 588 words achieves a higher coverage (14%) than the traditional academic word list, suggesting a more effective vocabulary tool for the academic mathematical community. These results highlight the importance of developing field-specific vocabulary resources to support academic and pedagogical needs in different subject areas.