English for Academic Purposes: Grammar

Grammar in EAP

Introduction

Grammar is an essential component of EAP as without grammar there is nothing to hold the vocabulary items together within the texts. These vocabulary items are constructed from separate parts and inflect (Morphology) and occur in sequences (Syntax). The morphology and syntax is what makes the grammar of the language. As with all registers of English, EAP uses verbs, nouns, prepositions, articles, adverbs etc.

See: Grammar in EAP: Example

Exercises

Word Classes Exercises: Exercise 1; Exercise 2

The important question, though, is: which aspects of grammar are relevant for EAP? The grammatical forms that are used in academic English differ in their distributions from other registers, and need to be studied carefully. According to Biber, Johansson, Leech, Conrad & Finegan, (1999, p. 65), approximately 55% of lexical words in academic texts are nouns, 20% are adjectives, 15% are verbs and 10% are adverbs.

For example, written language is grammatically more complex than spoken language (Biber, 1988; Biber, Johansson, Leech, Conrad & Finegan, 1999; Chafe, 1982; Cook, 1997; Halliday,1989). Written texts are lexically dense compared to spoken language – they have proportionately more lexical words than grammatical words. Written texts are shorter and have longer, more complex words and phrases. They have more noun-based phrases, more nominalisations, and more lexical variation. Written language has more subordinate clauses, more “that/to” complement clauses, more long sequences of prepositional phrases, more attributive adjectives and more passives than spoken language.

A good starting point is Biber, Johansson, Leech & Finegan (1992) or Biber (2006). Here are some aspects of grammar that are considered important in EAP: