ABSTRACT
Academic vocabulary is an active area of research interest in vocabulary studies and is closely linked to the research, teaching, and learning of English for Academic Purposes. This chapter looks at seven critical issues and topics in academic vocabulary: the importance of this lexis; its definitions in the research literature; the identification of academic single words; the developing area of academic multiword units; recent investigations into academic vocabulary in spoken texts; analyzing middle school vocabulary; and research into the development of academic lexis in learning programs. Suggestions for future research include moving beyond the traditional undergraduate focus to secondary school and postgraduate contexts, more longitudinal studies, replication studies, and extending the research to languages other than English.
