Using corpus methods to identify subject specific uses of polysemous words in English secondary school science materials

Abstract

Many education professionals in Britain believe that school pupils have difficulty accessing academic texts because of inadequate knowledge of vocabulary. Previous research has suggested that some high frequency words used in non-specialised contexts have academic meanings that can cause problems for school pupils. We take corpus techniques used in the study of higher education texts and apply them to a corpus of texts designed for school pupils aged 11 to 14, attempting to identify such words automatically. We use the Spoken BNC2014 as a reference corpus. We identify a list of semi-technical words ( Baker, 1988 ), many of which are polysemous, having everyday meanings and related school subject meanings that may not be familiar to pupils. We investigate how semi-technical vocabulary can be identified and distinguished from both specialised and general vocabulary. Some supplementary qualitative analysis was needed, using collocation and concordance analysis. While time-consuming, the potential benefits for pupils struggling with school language make this a worthwhile exercise.

Tracking vocabulary and reading growth in children from lower and higher socioeconomic backgrounds during the transition from primary to secondary education

“…Plausibly, children's existing everyday vocabulary is no longer sufficient in this context and therefore does not match teacher's expectations. Instead, the challenge for early secondary school students is to rapidly adapt to this new context, and build new “curriculum‐relevant” vocabulary (see Deignan & Love, 2019 ).…”

“…A more precise vocabulary measure would include a vocabulary subtest capturing Tier 2, or “academic vocabulary.” This vocabulary is acquired at a later age and occurs more commonly in written text rather than conversational speech (e.g., “increase,” Beck et al, 2002 ) and is particularly important for accessing secondary learning materials (Deignan & Love, 2019 ; Snow, 2010 ). Although the everyday vocabulary test did include some of this vocabulary, we were not able to track this separately.…”

“…Pupils are more likely to move between classrooms and are taught by a greater number of teachers each with different specialisms, and many children will find that their priorities shift toward adjusting to the new school environment and on building relationships. Importantly, language and literacy skills become increasingly vital as pupils are expected to develop autonomy over their learning, including increased independent reading (Deignan & Love, 2019 ).…”