English for Academic and Professional Purposes

Distinguishing Academic English from General English

Module 001: Distinguishing Academic English from

General English

The emergence of English as a world language has been

raising the demand for the mastery of its use in order to
function well in a global society. In fact, English language
proficiency is a requirement in academics, business and
professional jobs around the world. Perhaps, its status as the
global Lingua Franca has resulted to two types of English: the
general English and academic English. A language learner
who is proficient with general English may not necessarily
proficient in academic English. As a student, it is important
to make the distinction between general English and
academic English. Academic English is the language necessary
for success in school. It is related to a standards-based
curriculum, including the content areas of math, science, social
studies, and English language arts.

To be proficient in academic English should be the goal

why students come to school, and not only to learn how to
communicate the language socially. Using everyday English
does not mean that they are good in academic English. To the
contrary, they are not yet proficient enough to handle the
standards-based curriculum. They lack the academic
vocabulary needed to develop the content knowledge in
English that they will need to succeed in higher learning. By
recognizing these two types of proficiencies, you can help
expedite your academic English..

At the end of this module , you will be able to:

a. define academic language,

b. revise an informal English passage to a passage that
reflect academic English;
c. use stress to identify the meaning of a word;
d. differentiate Academic English from General English;
e. classify words associated with a specific category.
 English for Academic and Professional Purposes
Distinguishing Academic English from General English

Definition
English for Academic Purposes focus on the language skills
where the ‘rules’ and strategies of academic skills are
different from the general language skills. It is a kind of
English teaching that relates to the learner’s immediate
purposes. To note:

English for Academic Purposes is an approach to language

education based on a close identification of the specific
language features, discourse practices, and communicative
skills of target academic groups, and which recognizes the
particular subject-matter needs and expertise of learners
(Hyland, 2006).

Features of Academic English

A- General English vs. Academic English

Task 1: How much do you know?

Check your knowledge about the differences between

General English and Academic English. Identify which one
shows the feature of General English and Academic English.
Write General English text or Academic English text.

A)_____________________

SUFFERING FROM DYSENTERY ,

my father was prostrate on his cot,
with another five sick inmates
nearby. I sat next to him, watching
him; I no longer dared to believe
that he could still elude Death. I
did all I could to give him hope.
All of a sudden, he sat up and
placed his feverish lips against my
ear: "Eliezer…I must tell you where
I buried the gold and silver…
In the cellar…
 English for Academic and Professional Purposes
Distinguishing Academic English from General English

B) ___________________________________

Senator Leila Delima used 19 drug

lords jailed in the penitentiary to
take up to P5M a month each to
fund her senatorial bid and
transferred those failing to meet
their monthly quotas to sell 50 kilos
of shabu to other prisons, witnesses
told a congressional hearing
Tuesday.

Task 2: Examine the two text examples above. Describe the features of English in
each sample. Write your answers in a separate paper following the table below:

Features Sample A Sample B

Sentence and
Grammatical structure
Text type

Two Types of Texts:

1. Narrative Text - a written text that tells a story and

usually follows a familiar structure. It can be in the
form of reporting of factual events, or the retelling of a
tale from oral tradition. It is often written in informal,
everyday English.

Sample A is a type of a narrative text.

2. Expository text - provides an explanation of facts and

concepts. Its main purpose is to inform, persuade, or
explain. It is usually written in academic English.

Sample B is a type of an expository text.

CHARACTERISTICS OF LANGUAGE TYPES

 English for Academic and Professional Purposes
Distinguishing Academic English from General English

Informal English Academic English

Uses hedges ( sort of, kind of)
Uses personal pronouns ( I)
Uses simple connectors (but, also, and)
Uses slang (stuff, guys)
Relies more on basic discourse
structures, such as narratives
Does not use hedges
Avoid personal pronouns
Uses sophisticated transition words
(moreover)
Uses academic words
Specific linguistic functions are more
important (persuading, hypothesizing)

More extensive use of listening and Relatively decontextualized and cognitively

speaking demanding
Requires greater mastery of range of
linguistic features

B - Defining Academic Language

Academic language is:

 Language used in academic settings and for academic

purposes to help students acquire and use knowledge
(Anstrom, et al., 2010)
 Words and syntactic structures that students are likely to
encounter in textbooks and tests, but not in everyday,
spoken English (Strategic Education Research Partnership,
2010)

 “The language used in the learning of academic subject

matter in a formal schooling context; aspects of language
strongly associated with literacy and academic
achievement, including specific academic terms or technical
language and speech registers related to each field of
study.” (TESOL, 2003)

 The language of academic disciplines, of texts and

literature, and of extended, reasoned discourse
 Language that students must comprehend to access the
concepts associated with a particular discipline (e.g.,
mathematics, science, social science) and use to
demonstrate their understanding of those concepts
(Anstrom, et al., 2010)
 English for Academic and Professional Purposes
Distinguishing Academic English from General English

Casual, Informal Formal

…and the lions they, um, live in
the deserts of Africa and have to
walk long ways to find food.
There’s not much water either.
They’re hot a lot.
Lions, also known as “kings of the
jungle” inhabit the large, arid,
deserts of Africa. Due to the sweltering
temperatures and minimal water supply
they often have to traverse long distances to
find prey to hunt and water to drink.

Academic language

 Features vary as a function of the discipline (e.g., social

science vs. mathematics), topic, and mode of
communication (e.g., written vs. oral)

Common features include:

 Conciseness
 High density of information-bearing words
 Complex grammatical and syntactic structures
- (Snow 2010)

Different Types of Knowledge Needed to Foster Academic Language

• Academic language extends beyond the use of specific

academic vocabulary to require knowledge in the
following areas:

 Understanding of the phonological features of

English
 Lexical knowledge (e.g., vocabulary, word
formation rules)
 Grammatical competence
 Discourse
 Cognition

- (Scarcella 2003)

1. Phonological Features

Academic language requires knowledge of:

a. sound-symbol relationship
English for Academic and Professional Purposes
Distinguishing Academic English from General English

The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) has a set of

symbols by which of which the important sounds in English
can be represented. There is a symbol for every sound and no
more than one symbol for any given sound.
example : strength [ strєnƟ] plaid [plæd]
amoeba [ ӘmibӘ]

b. Stress, intonation and sound patterns

One of the most important features of the English

language is stress. Another word for stress is accent.
When a syllable is stressed or accented, we pronounced it
with more force than other syllables with the word. The
stressed syllable of a word is said with more emphasis,
with a louder voice, with a higher pitch, and with a longer
pause or duration.

Stress also indicates the difference of usage. The examples

below show the word accented on the first syllable is used as a
noun. Accent falls on the second syllable is a verb

Examples: REcord / reCOrd

1. Manny Pacquiao has the récord of an eight division

championship in the world boxing titles.
(Stress falls on the first syllable. ( Record is used as a
noun.)

2. The secretary recÓrded the minutes of meeting.

Intonation is the rise and fall in the pitch of the voice

when speaking. It gives a sentence several different
meanings depending on the emphasis placed by the speaker.

c. Patterns from words borrowed from other languages

• Antebellum facile foci appendices lingua franca

2. Lexical Features

Academic language requires knowledge of:

a. Forms and meanings of words that are used across academic

disciplines
 English for Academic and Professional Purposes
Distinguishing Academic English from General English

• describe, explain, analyze

b. How academic words are formed with prefixes, roots, and

suffixes

• investigate, hypothesize

c. Parts of speech of academic words

d. Grammar usage

Building Vocabulary Through Word Category

Expanding vocabulary by learning word categories is very
important to understand words that are related in order to
use varied vocabulary about a particular field.

Word Category - is the grouping of words related to the

content-area, theme, unit, or selection.
Examples:

Words Associated with Environmental Protection

Recycle

Compost

Conservation

Environmental Irrigation

Protection Greenhouse

Ozone

Pesticides

Pollution
English for Academic and Professional Purposes
Distinguishing Academic English from General English

Words associated with Gender – Free terms

Gender -Free Police officers

Terms Customer service assistant

Firefighter

Supervisor

Manager

Mail carrier

server

Words associated with animals’ defense mechanism

Animals’ Camouflage
Survival
Technique Estivate

hibernate

Word Category in a horizontal and vertical pattern.

PEOPLE PLACES ACTION

teacher school study

Profession Professor university teach

supervisor department promote

Religion Buddhist temple believe

Christian church worship

Muslims mosque pray

 English for Academic and Professional Purposes
Distinguishing Academic English from General English

Academic language includes a variety of formal-language skills—

such as vocabulary, grammar, punctuation, syntax, discipline-specific
terminology, or rhetorical conventions—that allow students to
acquire knowledge and academic skills while also successfully
navigating school policies, assignments, expectations, and cultural
norms. It is contrasted with “conversational” or “social” language or
informal language.

Glossary

Academic English - is different from everyday spoken English. It is

usually formal in tone and impersonal in style.

Academic language - refers to the oral, written, auditory, and visual

language proficiency required to learn effectively in schools and
academic programs—i.e., it’s the language used in classroom lessons,
books, tests, and assignments, and it’s the language that students are
expected to learn and achieve fluency in.

Grammatical competence – refers to the knowledge of grammar,

lexis, morphology, syntax, semantics and morphology. One of four
areas of the communicative competence theory put forward by Canale
and Swain (Gao, 2001).

Lexical knowledge - encompasses all the information that is known

about words and the relationships among them. It also refers to
linguistic knowledge such as phonology, morphology, and grammatical
categories. From the term ‘ lexical’ , derived from the Greek word lexis,
meaning "word" or "speech."

Syntactic Structures - a fully formal approach to syntax or the study

of sentence structures.
 English for Academic and Professional Purposes
Distinguishing Academic English from General English

References:
Books

Celce – Murcia, M. and Larsen Freeman, D. (200). The Grammar Book: An

ESL/ EFL Teacher’s Course. 2nd Edition. Singapore. Heinle .

Villamin, A.M. et al (1994) Innovative Strategies in Communication Arts.

Quezon City, Phoenix Publishing, Inc.

Online Supplementary Reading Materials

English for Academic Purposes.

www.academia.edu/22895101/English_for_Academic_Purpose. Retrieved on
May 17, 2017

English for Academic Purposes.

http://www.kantakji.com/media/6494/t121.pdf. Retrieved on January 21,
2017

Online Instructional Videos

Social vs. academic language

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQQvu1szziY

Introduction to English for Academic Purposes with Josh #29.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqkdOOnn7GE