Mapping Meaning in the STEM context: Visualizing Lexical Networks in Academic English

Value

£6355.43

Description

Students studying English for Academic Purposes (EAP) in STEM disciplines face a vocabulary challenge that general learner dictionaries cannot adequately address. Technical fields such as computer science, chemical engineering, and electronics are dense with vocabulary that may appear familiar in everyday use but carries precise, shifted meanings in disciplinary writing. Existing corpus tools can provide authentic language evidence, but they require specialist linguistic training that most students and teachers do not have, limiting their practical uptake in EAP classrooms.

This 18-month project will develop Visualizing Glossaries for Academic English, a free, open-access web application that makes corpus-based vocabulary learning accessible without prior knowledge of linguistics. The tool presents curated STEM glossary terms drawn from authoritative sources, alongside authentic collocations harvested from open-access academic articles. Rather than offering static definitions, the application visualizes vocabulary as an interactive network of related terms, allowing students to explore how words behave in authentic disciplinary writing. A working prototype has already been developed and is publicly accessible.