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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 controlleft and controlright 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.