ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the role and value of word list research for ESP, using examples from a range of corpus-based studies in professional and academic contexts. In vocabulary research, corpus linguistics studies use word lists for various reasons, including identifying, classifying and quantifying the amount or proportion of technical vocabulary in texts. A particular use of word lists is to estimate the coverage of a list over a text or corpus. Word list research has also been driven by the needs of particular groups of language learners and to help set learning goals. Developing and applying consistent principles for selecting lexical items for word lists is important because principles guide researchers in making many decisions in word list development. The unit of counting is an important aspect of word list development. Units of counting can include individual word types, lemmas or word families.
