Show AWL words on this page.
Show sorted lists of these words.
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Any words you don't know? Use the website's built-in dictionary to look them up!
In addition to general words and academic words, you will also need to learn subject-specific or 'technical' vocabulary. This page explains what subject-specific vocabulary is.
Each subject has words which are either used specifically in that subject area (and not in general English), or common words which are used with special meaning in that subject area. Such words are known as technical, domain-specific or subject-specific words. The following are two examples of non-general words used in the subject area of genetics:
Words such as these can be difficult even for native speakers to learn, though native speakers may have some advantage in being able to recognise prefixes, suffixes or roots which give the word meaning, e.g. 'di-' in diploid, meaning 'two'.
The second type of subject-specific vocabulary, i.e. common words used with special meaning, are similar to the type of academic vocabulary in which general words have a special meaning in academic contexts. In this case, though, such words take on a special meaning according to the subject they are being used in, as shown in the following examples.
class
family
cohesion
You can see these and other examples of subject-specific words in the section on subject-specific lists.
Check out some subject-specific lists for certain subjects in the next section.
Read the previous section about the GSL (General Service List).
Author: Sheldon Smith ‖ Last modified: 13 September 2019.
Sheldon Smith is the founder and editor of EAPFoundation.com. He has been teaching English for Academic Purposes since 2004. Find out more about him in the about section and connect with him on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
1
2
3
4
5
6