Exploring Academic Vocabulary: Form, Meaning, Use

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 upperintermediate to advanced users of English, and teachers. It serves as the ideal companion to both Academic IELTS preparation and independent study.

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.