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چکیده
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This corpus-based study examined the representation, coverage, distribution, and contextual use of General Service List (GSL) and Academic Word List (AWL) word families in officially prescribed English textbooks used by Iraqi students at secondary (English for Iraq series, Grades 10–12) and university levels (Developing Skills in English and University English) during the 2023–2024 academic year. A quantitative-methods approach was employed, compiling a corpus of approximately 250,000 running words and analyzing it using Range and AntConc software to measure frequency, text coverage, range, and collocational patterns. Results revealed that GSL vocabulary dominates the entire corpus (72%), reaching 75% in secondary textbooks before decreasing to 67% at university level, while AWL coverage remains relatively low, rising from only 5% in secondary materials to 12% in university textbooks—still below the 10–15% typically found in authentic academic texts. Off-list items (mainly proper nouns, cultural references, and Iraq-specific terms) maintained a stable proportion of 20–21% across both levels. Qualitative analysis showed that GSL words appear predominantly in everyday, concrete, and culturally familiar contexts at the secondary stage, whereas AWL items begin to emerge in more abstract and discipline-oriented discourse at university level, with some effective academic collocations (e.g., analyze data, develop skills), though limited in variety and systematic recycling. The study concludes that while Iraqi English textbooks provide a solid foundation in general high-frequency vocabulary, they offer insufficient exposure to academic lexis and lack sufficient progression and authentic contextualization to adequately prepare students for English-medium higher education, recommending strategic curriculum revisions to enhance AWL integration, collocational teaching, and balanced lexical progression across educational stages.
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