{"title":"科学普及话语中的词汇覆盖：科学美国人》的科普新闻案例","authors":"","doi":"10.1016/j.esp.2024.10.001","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Science popularization discourse offers valuable reading materials for second language (L2) learners in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) contexts. However, the lexical demands of these materials remain largely unexplored. To address this gap, this study examines the lexical profile of <em>Scientific American</em> (SA), one of the most widely read popular science publications. Based on a corpus of popular science news collected from the SA website, we analyzed its lexical demand in terms of Nation's (2018) BNC/COCA word frequency lists and West's (1953) General Service List of English Words (GSL) plus Coxhead's (2000) Academic Word List (AWL). Our results indicate that to achieve minimal comprehension of popular science news published in SA, learners should be familiar with approximately 5,000 word families, while optimal comprehension requires knowledge of around 10,000 word families, including proper nouns, marginal words, transparent compounds, and acronyms. Notably, the GSL covers 77.55% and the AWL covers 7.08% coverage of the SA corpus, suggesting that our SA corpus has a higher coverage of general English words and a lower coverage of academic English words than university-level academic written texts. These findings highlight the potential value of popular science news in supporting academic reading, particularly for beginning EAP learners who may find these materials less lexically demanding than research articles. Pedagogical implications for incorporating popular science news into EAP courses are also provided.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47809,"journal":{"name":"English for Specific Purposes","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.2000,"publicationDate":"2024-10-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":"{\"title\":\"Lexical coverage in science popularization discourse: The case of popular science news from Scientific American\",\"authors\":\"\",\"doi\":\"10.1016/j.esp.2024.10.001\",\"DOIUrl\":null,\"url\":null,\"abstract\":\"<div><div>Science popularization discourse offers valuable reading materials for second language (L2) learners in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) contexts. However, the lexical demands of these materials remain largely unexplored. To address this gap, this study examines the lexical profile of <em>Scientific American</em> (SA), one of the most widely read popular science publications. Based on a corpus of popular science news collected from the SA website, we analyzed its lexical demand in terms of Nation's (2018) BNC/COCA word frequency lists and West's (1953) General Service List of English Words (GSL) plus Coxhead's (2000) Academic Word List (AWL). Our results indicate that to achieve minimal comprehension of popular science news published in SA, learners should be familiar with approximately 5,000 word families, while optimal comprehension requires knowledge of around 10,000 word families, including proper nouns, marginal words, transparent compounds, and acronyms. Notably, the GSL covers 77.55% and the AWL covers 7.08% coverage of the SA corpus, suggesting that our SA corpus has a higher coverage of general English words and a lower coverage of academic English words than university-level academic written texts. These findings highlight the potential value of popular science news in supporting academic reading, particularly for beginning EAP learners who may find these materials less lexically demanding than research articles. Pedagogical implications for incorporating popular science news into EAP courses are also provided.</div></div>\",\"PeriodicalId\":47809,\"journal\":{\"name\":\"English for Specific Purposes\",\"volume\":null,\"pages\":null},\"PeriodicalIF\":3.2000,\"publicationDate\":\"2024-10-17\",\"publicationTypes\":\"Journal Article\",\"fieldsOfStudy\":null,\"isOpenAccess\":false,\"openAccessPdf\":\"\",\"citationCount\":\"0\",\"resultStr\":null,\"platform\":\"Semanticscholar\",\"paperid\":null,\"PeriodicalName\":\"English for Specific Purposes\",\"FirstCategoryId\":\"98\",\"ListUrlMain\":\"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S088949062400053X\",\"RegionNum\":1,\"RegionCategory\":\"文学\",\"ArticlePicture\":[],\"TitleCN\":null,\"AbstractTextCN\":null,\"PMCID\":null,\"EPubDate\":\"\",\"PubModel\":\"\",\"JCR\":\"Q1\",\"JCRName\":\"LINGUISTICS\",\"Score\":null,\"Total\":0}","platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"English for Specific Purposes","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S088949062400053X","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"LINGUISTICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
Lexical coverage in science popularization discourse: The case of popular science news from Scientific American
Science popularization discourse offers valuable reading materials for second language (L2) learners in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) contexts. However, the lexical demands of these materials remain largely unexplored. To address this gap, this study examines the lexical profile of Scientific American (SA), one of the most widely read popular science publications. Based on a corpus of popular science news collected from the SA website, we analyzed its lexical demand in terms of Nation's (2018) BNC/COCA word frequency lists and West's (1953) General Service List of English Words (GSL) plus Coxhead's (2000) Academic Word List (AWL). Our results indicate that to achieve minimal comprehension of popular science news published in SA, learners should be familiar with approximately 5,000 word families, while optimal comprehension requires knowledge of around 10,000 word families, including proper nouns, marginal words, transparent compounds, and acronyms. Notably, the GSL covers 77.55% and the AWL covers 7.08% coverage of the SA corpus, suggesting that our SA corpus has a higher coverage of general English words and a lower coverage of academic English words than university-level academic written texts. These findings highlight the potential value of popular science news in supporting academic reading, particularly for beginning EAP learners who may find these materials less lexically demanding than research articles. Pedagogical implications for incorporating popular science news into EAP courses are also provided.
期刊介绍：
English For Specific Purposes is an international peer-reviewed journal that welcomes submissions from across the world. Authors are encouraged to submit articles and research/discussion notes on topics relevant to the teaching and learning of discourse for specific communities: academic, occupational, or otherwise specialized. Topics such as the following may be treated from the perspective of English for specific purposes: second language acquisition in specialized contexts, needs assessment, curriculum development and evaluation, materials preparation, discourse analysis, descriptions of specialized varieties of English.
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