Academic English has its own register in terms of its diction, structure and layout. This register is mandatory for writing dissertations. Yet, academic English also entails specificity of written language that is strictly social, cultural and research bound. The current study has described the specificity of academic English used in dissertations in the field of English studies in Pakistan. By adopting corpus based research approach the study has illustrated the specificity of academic English by identifying the frequency of the use and functions of content words like verbs and nouns in PhD dissertations in English Linguistics, English Literature and English Language Teaching. By using software Antconc, verbal structures of the different types and categories of verbs were analyzed in terms of the frequency of occurrence and their functions in encoding research in the different sections of dissertation i.e. introduction, literature review, research methodology, analysis/discussion and conclusion. Whereas, the processes of nominalization via suffixation was also analyzed via software Antconc in terms of specifying the categorical use of the patterns of different suffixes and their functions in encoding research in dissertations. The study is significant in facilitating the scholars and researchers in understanding the categorical use and functions of verbs and processes of nominalization in encoding research in dissertation in English studies in Pakistan.