You can change the default keybindings for OS X text editing with the DefaultKeyBinding.dict file. Make a new text file at `~/Library/KeyBindings/DefaultKeyBinding.dict`, with these contents:

    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
    <!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
    <plist version="1.0">
    <dict>
    	<key>^&#xF702;</key>
    	<string>moveWordLeft:</string>
        <key>^&#xF703;</key>
    	<string>moveWordRight:</string>
    </dict>
    </plist>

Restart or log out and in, and <kbd>control</kbd><kbd>left</kbd> and <kbd>control</kbd><kbd>right</kbd> should do what you're looking for. This will work in *most* OS X apps, but there are some (typically third party text editors) that use their own bindings, which will need to be switched on a case-by-case basis.