ACADEMIC LANGUAGE

Language used in academic settings and for academic purposes to help

students acquire and use knowledge (Anstrom, et al., 2010)
- With academic language, words and syntactic structures that students are
likely to encounter in textbooks and tests, but not in everyday, spoken
English

The language used in 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).

Academic Language extends beyond the use of specific academic vocabulary

to require knowledge in the following areas:
Components of Academic Language
1. Understanding of Phonological Features
2. Lexical Knowledge
3. Grammatical Competence
4. Sociolinguistic Competence
5. Discourse Component

Understanding of Phonological Features

- academic language requires knowledge of the (a) sound-symbol

relationship, (b) stress intonation and sound patterns, and (c) patterns from
words borrowed from other language.

A. The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) has a set of symbols by 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.

strength – [strεηθ]
amoeba – [əmibə]
plaid – [plad]

Consonants
According to their place of articulation, the English consonants are further
classified into bilabial, labiodental, dental, alveolar, palatal, velar, and
glottal. According to the manner of articulation, they are grouped into
stops, fricatives, and affricates.

Voiced vs Voiceless Consonants

A voiced sound is one in which the vocal cords vibrate, and a voiceless
sound is one in which they do not. Voicing is the difference between pairs
of sounds such as [s] and [z] in English.

a. Nature of Obstruction or Manner of Articulation

i. Stops
These are sounds created by stopping the passage of the
breath with a build-up of pressure before the release of breath.

Bilabial Stops [p] and [b]

Alveolar Stops [t] and [d]
Velar Stops [k] and [g]

ii. Fricatives
Fricatives are created when the air is not completely stopped
but goes through with a hissing sound or friction. Fricatives are
continuants or consonant sounds with the vocal tract only
partially closed, allowing air to pass through.

Labiodental Fricatives [f] and [v]

Dental Fricatives [ð] and [θ]
Alveolar Fricatives [s] and [z]
Post Alveolar Fricatives [r]
Palatal Fricatives [ʃ] and [ʒ]
Glottal Fricatives [h]

iii. Affricates
Affricates can be created when a stop is combined with a
fricative. As with the fricatives, they are also continuants. These
sounds can be prolonged as long as the speaker wants to.

Alveolar Affricates [dʒ] and [tʃ]

iv. Nasals
Nasals can be produces when the air passes through the nose
and not the mouth.

Bilabial nasal [m]

Alveolar nasal [n]
Velar nasal [ŋ]

v. Lateral
Lateral sounds are created when air is stopped in the center
by the tip of the tongue against the alveolar ridge, while your
breath passes either one or both sides of the tongue.

Alveolar Lateral [l]

vi. Semi-vowels (Glide)

These are consonants that sounds vowel-like. There is no friction
made when making the sounds.
 Bilabial [w]
Palatal [j]

b. Point of Articulation
i. Bilabial – when lower lip touches the upper lip to produce the
sound Example: [p] [b] [m] [w]

ii. Labiodental – when the lower lip comes in contact with the
upper front teeth Example: [f] [v]

iii. Interdental – produced by placing the tip of the tongue

between the upper and lower front teeth. Example: [ð]
[θ]

iv. Alveolar – the sound is created when the tips of the tongue is
raised near the back part of the upper front teeth. Example: [t]
[d] [s] [z] [n] [l]

v. Palatal – when the tongue is arched towards the palate.

Example: [r] [j] [dʒ] [tʃ] [ʃ] [ʒ]

vi. Velars – when the back of the tongue is against the soft palate
(velum) Example: [k] [g] [ŋ] [w]

vii. Glottal – the sound of air when friction is produced as it goes

through the glottis. Example: [h]
The illustration below summarizes the discussion above.
IPA Symbols of the English Consonants

Voiced Voiceless
bay [b] pay [p]
vow [v] so [s]
zoo [z] tie [t]
die [d] cake [k]
go [ɡ] show [ʃ]
 they [ð] no [n]
measure [ʒ] lie [l]
may [m] rye [ɹ] [r]
judge [dʒ] yes [j]
go [ɡ] weigh [w]
sing [ŋ] fee [f]
church [tʃ]
thigh [θ]
hay [h]

FRONT CENTRAL BACK

HIGH

MID

LOW

IPA Symbols of the English Vowels

Take note that all vowel sounds are voiced, unlike consonants where some
are voiceless. Below is a table that summarizes the articulatory description of
English vowels:

[i] beat, receive, see

 [I] bit, filth, rich
[e] hate, bait
[ɛ] head, bet
[æ] ash, bat
[a] hot, large
[o] hose, low
[ʊ] who, pull
[u] hood, pool
[ʌ] hut, bundle
[ɔ] law, ought
[ə] Ahea d, earth

Diphthongs

[eɪ] face, rain, cake

[ɔɪ] boy, coil
[aɪ] ice, my
[aʊ] mouth, brown

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, it is pronounced with
more force than the other syllables within 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.

Intonation is the rise and fall in the pitch of the voice when speaking. It gives a
sentence several meanings depending on the emphasis placed by the speaker.
PREsent – preSENT
REcord – reCORD
PROduce – proDUCE

HE ISN’T FLYING TO PARIS TOMORROW.

He isn’t flying to Paris tomorrow. (someone else is flying)

In this case, you mean that it’s not him who is traveling but someone else.
As in: “He isn't flying to Paris tomorrow. His brother is.”

He isn’t flying to Paris tomorrow. (it is not true he is flying)

Here, the emphasis is on the word “isn’t” to say that, it’s not true that he is
flying. As in: “Do you know that John is flying to Paris tomorrow?”
“He isn’t flying to Paris tomorrow. He was intending to but he changed his
mind later.”

He isn’t flying to Paris tomorrow. (he is not flying; he’ll do something else)
By stressing the word “flying”, we intend to say that this is not what he’s
going to do but maybe something else. As in: “He isn't flying to Paris
tomorrow. He is actually driving.

He isn’t flying to Paris tomorrow. (wrong direction to fly into)

If you say the word “to” louder, you’re saying this is not the direction he’s
flying into. As in: “He isn't flying to Paris tomorrow. He is actually flying
back from Paris.”
He isn’t flying to Paris tomorrow. (not the actual destination)
Stressing the word “Paris”, in this example, would mean that this is not the
actual destination of John’s flight. As in: “He is not flying to Paris. He’s flying
to New York.”

He isn’t flying to Paris tomorrow. (he’ll fly another day)

Giving emphasis to the word “tomorrow” would mean that it’s not tomorrow
he’s flying but another day. As in: “He isn't flying to Paris tomorrow. He said
he would be flying the day after tomorrow.”
As you can see, you are saying the same words every time, just
pronouncing a different word at a higher pitch. In this way, you are actually
saying a different thing every time.

A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word adopted from one language
(the donor language) and incorporated into another language without
translation. As such, pronunciation of the word will be the same as how it is
pronounced in the language. A commonly committed error in this case is
hyperforeignism or the misdistribution of patterns found in loanwords and
extending it to other similar environments (like habanero is sometimes
pronounced as it were spelled with an ⟨ñ⟩ (habañero), which is not the Spanish
form from which the English word was borrowed).

café = FRENCH

ballet = FRENCH
tsunami = JAPANESE The word tsunami (pronounced tsoo-nah'-mee) is
composed of the Japanese words "tsu" (which means harbor) and "nami"
(which means "wave"
croissant = FRENCH

entrepreneur = FRENCH

Lexical Knowledge – academic language requires knowledge of (a) forms and

meanings of words that are used across academic disciplines, (b) how academic
words are formed with prefixes, roots, and suffixes, (c) parts of speech of
academic words, and (d) grammar usage.

Jargons are specialized set of terms (vocabulary) and language that is

used in a specific context and setting (field). People who are not part of
the group may not be able to understand the jargon used, as the words
are either obscure terms or have different definitions than the regular usage
of the word.

Chefs (flambé, knead, purée, sieve…)

Engineers (damping, footing, gage, strut…)
Medical Field (comorbid, iatrogenic, idiopathic, tachycardia…)
Business (arbitrage, futures, treasury, volume…)
A basic word to which affixes (prefixes and suffixes) are added is called a root
word because it forms the basis of a new word. The root word is also a word in its
own right. Adding affixes to root words create a new word with a new meaning
and function.
love + -ly = lovely
noun = adjective
Having knowledge on the different affixes and their meanings would help greatly
in understanding the meaning of the newly formed word.
pre- affix, meaning before.
mis- affix, meaning wrongly.
-ness suffix, meaning condition/state of.
-s, -es suffix, meaning more than one.

There are three main types of affixes: prefixes, infixes, and suffixes. A prefix occurs
at the beginning of a word or stem (sub-mit, pre-determine, un-willing); a suffix at
the end (wonder-ful, depend-ent, act-ion); and an infix occurs in the middle.

Another important thing to remember about lexicon is ensuring that the words
used in the academic setting are those that are politically correct and socially
accepted. Gender-free nouns and euphemisms would greatly help in this regard.
Flight Attendant instead of stewardess.
Police Officer instead of policeman.
Ethnic Cleansing instead of genocide.
Sanitary Engineer instead of janitors.

Grammatical Competence – academic language requires knowledge of

grammatical features (morphological and syntactic) associated with
argumentative composition, procedural description, analysis, definition, and
knowledge of the grammatical co-occurrence restrictions governing words, the
grammatical metaphor, and knowledge of more complex rules of punctuation.

collocations: groups of two or more words that are commonly-used together.

• adverb + adjective
o Correct: fully aware
o Incorrect: outright aware
• adjective + noun
o Correct: deep sleep
o Incorrect: low sleep
• noun + noun
o Correct: round of applause
o Incorrect: group of applause
• noun + verb
o Correct: cats purr, dogs bark
o Incorrect: cats bark, dogs purr
• verb + noun
o Correct: give a speech
o Incorrect: send a speech
• verb + expression with preposition
o Correct: run out of time
 o Incorrect: speed out of time
• verb + adverb
o Correct: speak loudly
o Incorrect: speak blaringly

4. Sociolinguistic Competence – academic language requires knowledge of the

language functions. These functions include general ones of ordinary English such
as apologizing, complaining, and making requests as well as ones that are
common to academic fields.

Sociolinguistic competence refers to the ability to use language that is

appropriate to social contexts. Alptekin (2002, p. 58) explains that social
context refers to culture-specific contexts that include the norms, values,
beliefs, and behavioural patterns of a culture.
For example, thanking a friend in a formal speech is different from how it is
done over a meal.

Sociolinguistic competence likewise means knowing how to use and

respond to language appropriately, given the setting, the topic, and the
relationships among the people communicating. Sociolinguistic
competence asks: Which words and phrases fit this setting and this topic?
How can I express a specific attitude (courtesy, authority, friendliness,
respect)? When I need to? How do I know what attitude another person is
expressing?

5. Discourse Component – academic language requires knowledge of discourse

features used in specific academic genres. These discourse features help English
language learners develop their theses and provide smooth transition between
ideas.

According to the Council of Europe, the discourse competence is defined as the

learner's capacity to arrange, structure, link sentences in order to produce
coherent and cohesive texts. It is characterized by the ability: to order the
sentences according to the topic focus, temporal sequencing, cause and effect.

These strategies include paraphrase, circumlocution, repetition, reluctance,

avoidance of words, structures or themes, guessing, changes of register and style,
modifications of messages, etc.

Construct opportunities for classroom discourse that allow students to

demonstrate mastery of the lesson's objectives. For example, the teacher might
direct students to turn and talk to a neighbor, to “Think- Pair-Share,” or to sit knee-
to-knee with a classmate to discuss a topic.