Exploring Lexical Richness in English-Language theses Across Disciplines: A Comparative Analysis

Abstract

This study investigates the variations in lexical richness within English language theses across diverse disciplines, focusing on areas where researchers exhibit higher degrees of lexical richness and the evolution of vocabulary usage over time. By analyzing these variations, the research aims to provide insights into the effective use of lexical richness in academic writing and contribute to the development of more engaging and comprehensible scholarly publications. A total of 320 theses were randomly selected from the Turkey National Thesis Center and classified according to their scientific discipline. Using natural language processing techniques, unique word count, word diversity, and other metrics were analyzed. Results reveal that social sciences tend to exhibit higher lexical richness compared to natural sciences, and no significant difference was observed in word richness between social and natural sciences disciplines. These findings contribute to the understanding of lexical richness in academic writing and highlight the importance of achieving a balance between lexical richness and readability.