Danish Academic Vocabulary – Four studies on the words of academic written Danish

Project description

This thesis presents four studies aimed at identifying and describing Danish academic vocabulary.
The first study investigated the lexical coverage of Danish general high frequency vocabulary defined as the 2,000 most frequent words of Danish in general and academic language. It also explored the potential overlap between general and academic vocabulary by using criteria for word list development.

In the second study, Danish academic words were identified using quantitative criteria of range, frequency, and dispersion resulting in a Danish Academic Word List. It highlighted that academic and general vocabulary overlap as 363 of words belong to Danish general high frequency vocabulary.

The third study analysed the words of the Danish Academic Word List according to the functions these words perform in the academic text thus providing a functional categorisation of Danish academic vocabulary.

In the forth study, the Danish Academic Word List was expanded by investigating the words excluded from the list because they only satisfied the first two criteria established for the list in the second study (range, frequency, and dispersion). Words morphologically and semantically related to DAWL words were added.

The findings of these four studies advance our understanding of academic vocabulary, in general, and of Danish academic vocabulary, in particular. Moreover, this research has pedagogical implications for the teaching of academic Danish to both L1 and L2 students and learners as it offers a basis for the development of pedagocial tools and teaching material with an explicit focus on vocabulary.

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Project participants 

This PhD project is conducted by Anne Sofie Jakobsen. 

Project period

The project was published in 2018.