13
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
The first part of this section presents the overall vocabulary profile of the students’ theses showing the proportions of the vocabulary frequency classifications.
The second part shows the negative vocabulary profiles of K-1, K-2, K-3 AWL with lists of the vocabulary items that were not found in t
he students’ theses. The last part of this section shows the comparison of the
students’ theses with regard to the vocabulary items that were shared and unique in each of the
students’ theses. The comparison also shows the token recycling index that provides information about an
estimate of t he students’ theses comprehensibility.
A. Over All Vocabulary Profile on the students’ theses
Table 1. Overall vocabulary profile of the students’ theses
FAMILIES TYPES
TOKENS CUMULATIVE
K-1 WORDS
630 54.83
1217 45.89
23607 78.31
78.31
K-2 WORDS
230 20.02
378 14.25
1935 6.42
84.73
AWL
289 25.15
540 20.36
2543 8.44
93.17
OFF-LIST ?
517 19.50
2061 6.84
100
TOTAL 1149+?
2652 100
30146 100
14 As shown in Table 1, the first row shows three terms; family, type and token.
Word family is head word, for example: the family or head word of classification and classified is classify. Type is different words, for example: modality and capability are
different words. While classification,classified, classifying are considered as the same type. Token is words in a text; the total number of words in a text. For example, if in a
text there are classify [2], describe [6], development [3], and studying [5], the number of token is 16.
Table 1 shows the most frequently used 1000 words group or K-1 was 78.31, more than two-third of the vocabulary used in
the students’ theses. With the additional K-2 word coverage 6.42 the cumulative percentage of the word
coverage was 84.73. This is below a good estimate for good comprehension of reading theses. According to Hirsch 2003, an understanding of 90-95 of the words
is necessary for good comprehension. Based on the data in Table 1, this word knowledge band should include knowledge of academic words as much as 8.44.
Academic words are those words which are commonly used in academic texts. We need to question whether the proportion the academic words that amounted to 2543
words used in the students’theses is sufficient for thesis writing. Another point that is worth considering is the number of off-list words that reached 30146 words.
Although this off-list category is excluded from the frequency list and may occur infrequently low frequency words, it may have words that students’need for writing
theses. This low frequency list should not be ignored and theses students have to
15 make a selection for useful words in this category. According toLaufer in Alderson
2007 students need at least all the 3,000 level words to write for academic purpose.
B. Negative vocabulary profiles of the students’ theses
