OPAL (Oxford Phrasal Academic Lexicon)

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Selecting the words and phrases

The words and phrases in OPAL are based on two main corpora, to give learners a true picture of academic English:

• The written words and phrases are based on the 71-million-word Oxford Corpus of Academic English (OCAE), a corpus composed of academic texts published by Oxford University Press across these four subject areas: physical sciences, life sciences, social sciences, arts and humanities.

• The spoken words and phrases are based on the British Academic Spoken English (BASE) corpus*. This corpus was developed at the Universities of Warwick and Reading and contains nearly 1.2 million words of spoken academic English, recorded and transcribed from lectures and seminars across the same four subject areas.

* OPAL has been created with reference to the following corpora: the Oxford Corpus of Academic English (OCAE), the fiction subcorpus of the Oxford English Corpus (OEC), the spoken element of the British National Corpus (BNC) and a subset of the British Academic Spoken English (BASE) corpus, developed within the University of Warwick and for which relevant permissions have been obtained. BASE was developed at the Universities of Warwick and Reading under the directorship of Hilary Nesi and Paul Thompson. Corpus development of BASE was assisted by funding from BALEAP, EURALEX, the British Academy and the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

Created and endorsed by experts

We worked with language experts to develop the OPAL word lists, using a scientific method called ‘keyword analysis’ to identify the words and phrases that are the most important in an academic setting. This makes OPAL more than just a checklist of words that learners need to know. It helps students to use the most appropriate language in their academic writing and speaking.

Reviews

‘OPAL responds to the realistic needs of courses and classrooms which typically mix a range of disciplines in the student populations.‘

Michael McCarthy, Emeritus Professor of Applied Linguistics, University of Nottingham, UK

Recognizing the words

OPAL’s written and spoken words are shown in our Academic and English dictionary entries with symbols at the top of the entry. Clicking/tapping on the symbol will take you to the relevant OPAL list.

In OPAL, single words are arranged into sublists, with 12 sublists for the written words, and 6 sublists for the spoken words. Sublist 1 contains the most important academic words, with the next most important in sublist 2, and so on.

The phrase lists are grouped into functions. The written phrases list covers 15 different functions including ‘Explaining and defining’ and ‘Giving examples or presenting evidence’, and the spoken phrases list covers 16 functions including ‘Signposting and focusing in lectures/lessons’ and ‘Using vague language’.

You can browse the lists, search for an individual word or phrase within OPAL, filter the lists, and download them. For each word or phrase, you can look up the full dictionary entry by clicking/tapping on it.

OPAL in the dictionary

The Oxford Learner's Dictionary of Academic English is the learner’s dictionary that focuses exclusively on academic English. Select a word or phrase in any of the OPAL lists to go straight through to the dictionary entry, where you will get information about the word or phrase’s meaning and use, and example sentences. OPAL words are also labelled and linked in the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary.

How to use OPAL

Learners:

• OPAL provides you with a checklist of essential vocabulary that you need to learn to understand lectures, contribute to academic discussions, and to write essays and reports.

• Are you a beginner? Take a look at sublist 1 of the written words to start building your essential academic vocabulary.

• Check if the new words and phrases that you’ve come across in a lesson, lecture or a text are on the list, then look up the meaning in the Oxford Learner's Dictionary of Academic English.

• Are you an advanced learner who has mastered most of the top 1000 academic words? Use sublists 11 and 12 of the written words list to consolidate your learning and extend your knowledge.

Teachers:

• Download tips on how to use OPAL in the classroom here.

• Watch this webinar from ELT author and academic Michael McCarthy about the OPAL word lists and how they can be used in the classroom (sign-in/registration to Oxford Teachers’ Club required).