Academic Vocabulary in EFL Higher Education: A Narrative Review of Its Role in Academic Literacy and Disciplinary Participation

Abstract

Academic vocabulary has traditionally been conceptualized as a set of high-frequency lexical items that support comprehension of academic texts. While this perspective has informed influential pedagogical resources such as the Academic Word List and the Academic Vocabulary List, it provides only a partial explanation of how vocabulary contributes to learning in higher education. Research on academic vocabulary remains dispersed across corpus linguistics, vocabulary acquisition, English for Academic Purposes (EAP), academic literacy, reading research, and disciplinary discourse, with relatively limited integration of these complementary perspectives. This narrative review critically synthesizes scholarship from these traditions to reconsider the role of academic vocabulary in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) higher education. Rather than evaluating vocabulary as an isolated linguistic construct, the review examines its evolving conceptualization, its relationship with academic reading, writing, and disciplinary discourse, the challenges experienced by EFL university students, and the evidence supporting contemporary instructional approaches. The synthesis demonstrates that academic vocabulary is best understood not as a fixed inventory of words but as a dynamic linguistic resource through which students interpret disciplinary knowledge, construct arguments, negotiate meaning, and participate in academic communities. At the same time, the review identifies important limitations in the existing literature, such as the long-term relationship between vocabulary development and academic participation. It argues that effective vocabulary instruction cannot be separated from broader academic literacy practices and is most successful when integrated with authentic reading, writing, discussion, and disciplinary inquiry. By synthesizing evidence across previously disconnected research traditions, this review advances a more comprehensive understanding of academic vocabulary as both a linguistic and educational resource and proposes a shift from teaching academic words in isolation towards supporting students' progressive participation in the discourse practices of higher education.