Comparing the Vocabulary Classification and Keyword Analysis Approaches to Determining Technical Vocabulary of Islamic Studies

Abstract

Dealing with technical vocabulary is one of the essentials of English Language Teaching (ELT), yet it is still a major concern for learners and teachers who are bound to specific purposes of learning English. This paper reports on and compares two approaches to determining words to be included in a technical vocabulary list in the area of Islamic Religious studies (IRS): the vocabulary classification versus the keyword analysis. The first approach results in a list of four categories of words, namely high frequency words, academic words, technical vocabulary and low frequency words. Keyword analysis is the second approach, in which the end product is a list of words that saliently characterize certain texts. Drawing on the data of the Corpus of Islamic Religious Studies Textbooks in Indonesian Islamic State Institute, the two approaches are compared in terms of theoretical basis, method of analysis, and their end product. The target corpus (305,701 running words) is developed from core textbooks of Islamic religious studies whose content are aligned with the curriculum of Indonesian Islamic state universities. The merits and shortcomings of each approach are also elaborated. The result shows that a major difference between these two approaches is the presence or absence of some GSL word types in the two lists of technical vocabulary in Islamic religious studies.