Introducing the EAWL

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This website presents a subject-specific academic word list, the Economics Academic Word List (EAWL). This list contains 887 words (or 1,763 word forms) which cover around 5.5% of economics academic texts (see Figs. 1 & 2 below). The EAWL provides a more nuanced account of academic vocabulary than generic academic word lists which do not account for disciplinary variation. The EAWL can be used to set vocabulary learning goals or to develop materials for the teaching-learning of the academic vocabulary of the economics discourse community. To that end, this website hosts links to a range of resources and ready-made teaching-learning materials which will be of particular interest to teachers and learners of English for Specific Academic Purposes (ESAP). 

 

Fig. 1. Word list coverage of the 20-million word DOAJ Economics subcorpus (journal articles)

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Fig. 2. Word list coverage of the 250-thousand word BAWE Economics subcorpus (student assignments)

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EAWL teaching-learning materials

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EAWL highlighter and gapfill maker (click for link)*

This tool was developed by Sheldon Smith of EAP Foundation. It can be used to quickly and easily identify economics academic words in any text. Classroom texts, for example, can be pasted into the Word Finder to reveal the most important and useful academic words for economics students, or to make printable gapfill exercises. This is extremely useful for students, teachers and course designers attempting to select teaching-learning materials, set vocabulary learning goals or generally focus academic vocabulary learning activities. The EAWL highlighter also provides frequency information, e.g. words in sublist 1 are the most frequent in economics texts, while words in sublist 9 are the least frequent.

 

*As of September 2020, EAP Foundation's EAWL highlighter and gapfill maker has replaced the EAWL Wordfinder. 

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EAWL Quizlet (click for link)

The EAWL Quizlet set is based on the 100 most frequent EAWL words. It uses definitions from Google Dictionary and, importantly, authentic examples from a 20-million word economics corpus. The EAWL Quizzer enables students to study EAWL words through a variety of games and activities and then to test themselves. This tool will be extremely useful for students wishing to conduct independent vocabulary learning activities.

 

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EAWL resources

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EAWL (full list)

Click here to view the full EAWL at EAP Foundation. This list includes sublist data and dictionary definitions.

Click here to download the full EAWL with frequencies (in the DOAJ Economics subcorpus) as a .pdf file.

Click here to download the full EAWL as a .txt file.

Click here to download the EAWL sublists as a .zip file.

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EAWL research paper

More information regarding the development of the EAWL can be found here:

O'Flynn, J. (2019). An Economics Academic Word List (EAWL): Using online resources to develop a subject-specific word list and associated teaching-learning materials. Journal of Academic Language and Learning. 13 (1)

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UPDATE October 2020

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EAWL Version 1.1

An updated version of the EAWL (v1.1) is available to download here. This new version of the EAWL contains only the 848 words (or 1,688 word forms) which occur in a minimum of 100 different texts in the DOAJ Economics subcorpus. This simple range threshold has removed some of the more idiosyncratic vocabulary items from the original list, but has not adversely affected its coverage. The EAWL v1.1 contains 39 fewer words but still covers 5.4% of the DOAJ Economics subcorpus and the same 5.4% of the BAWE Economics subcorpus.

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If you have any questions regarding the EAWL please contact James O'Flynn at james.a.oflynn@gmail.com

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