Investigating Knowledge and Use of Technical Vocabulary in Traditional
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Investigating knowledge and use of technical vocabulary in Traditional Chinese Medicine By Cailing Lu A thesis submitted to the Victoria University of Wellington in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Applied Linguistics Victoria University of Wellington 2018 Abstract This research investigates the nature of vocabulary, especially technical vocabulary, in the specialized discipline of Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), which is an important area of higher education. It consists of three linked studies in correspondence to three research aims using a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods. Study 1 addressed the questions of what kinds of words constitute TCM lexis given its origin, and what is the vocabulary load of English- medium texts in this discipline. To answer these questions, a series of lexical analyses was conducted on three corpora: theory-based and practice-based textbook corpora and a journal article corpus, which reflect the main areas of reading for TCM students. The results showed that while high, mid and low- frequency vocabulary make up a fairly large proportion of these texts, other lexical items such as abbreviations, loan words, medical words, proper nouns, and compounds also feature in them, but in differing proportions depending on the text types. Further, this study found that a large vocabulary of 13,000 word families plus four supplementary lists and two TCM-specific lists is needed. This is the point which most TCM learners can read TCM textbooks and journal articles without vocabulary being a handicap. Study 2 looked more closely at the technical vocabulary in TCM. The nature of technical vocabulary was explored and TCM technical word lists of both single and multiword units were developed for learners and teachers in this discipline. A total of 2,778 word types were selected for the TCM technical word list based on the criteria of relative keyness in the TCM Corpora compared to a general written English corpus, meaningfulness, and frequency. The list provided 36.65% coverage of the corpora from which it was developed. In addition, a TCM technical lexical bundle list with 898 bundles was developed to supplement the technical word list. The findings suggested that lexical bundles play an essential role in creating meaning and structure of TCM discourse. Thus, they should be regarded as a basic linguistic construct since some technical vocabulary needs to be seen in bundles rather than in single words. ii The last study bridged the gap between corpus-based word lists and the actual ESP vocabulary learning context by way of investigating learners’ understanding of the technical words from the technical word list generated from the second study. Results suggested that learners faced different challenges in technical vocabulary learning depending on their linguistic backgrounds. Specifically, Chinese learners had great difficulty with technical words from the lower- frequency bands of BNC/COCA word lists, while Western learners encountered challenges with loan words borrowed from Chinese. As a result, a certain divergence between the Western and Chinese TCM learners’ understanding of technical words was manifested. These findings indicate that a pedagogically useful word list should be adaptable to learners from different linguistic backgrounds. Drawing on these findings, this thesis also provides methodological, theoretical, and pedagogical implications so that the TCM learners can gain better support in their specialized English vocabulary learning. They can also enable the teachers and course designers to better scaffold their students’ vocabulary development. iii Acknowledgements I owe several debts of gratitude to my supervisors, colleagues, friends, and family for their help, support and encouragement in the completion of this thesis. First, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my primary supervisor - Associate Professor Averil Coxhead, and secondary supervisors - Associate Professor Frank Boers and Associate Professor Peter Gu, for their invaluable guidance, generous support and continual encouragement during my whole PhD. It is my greatest honor and privilege to work with them. They have helped me grow as a researcher. I would also like to express my sincerest gratitude to Dr. Philip Durrant, who supervised for my Master’s project. He has greatly influenced my way of thinking and direction of academic life. Without him, I would never have considered doing a PhD in vocabulary. My special thanks goes to all participants for generously contributing their time to this research project. My warmest thanks also goes to Xuewei Li, Barbara Hoverd, Chito Pantig and Debra Betts, who have helped me with contacting the participants. My great thanks go to Dr. Betsy Quero, for her generosity in sharing her medical textbook corpus with me. I am also grateful to Tony Quinn, who is my subject librarian, for his help with purchasing the COCA corpus and other materials that I needed. Without their help, this thesis could hardly have been written. It is my privilege to study in School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies at Victoria University of Wellington (VUW). It is a friendly, supportive, and professional place for research. Further, I am especially indebted to VUW for financial support during my whole PhD in the form of a Victoria Doctoral Scholarship and Faculty Research Grants. iv My heartfelt thanks also go to my cousins – Yu Lu and Yuchen Wang for their help with conversion of textbooks from PDF to TEXT files. This saved me a considerable amount of time and prevented my eyes from further damage. In addition, I am very grateful to all friends in New Zealand and China who have helped me during the way - the colleagues at VUW, such as Associate Professor Meredith Marra, Janet Attrill, Brian Strong, Yen Dang, Lauren Whitty, Judy Wei; and also my dearest friends in China. They have made my PhD life a more pleasant journey. Last but not least, I am extremely grateful to my dearest parents, grandparents, and lovely younger sister for their love, support, and trust. I dedicate this work to them. v Table of contents Abstract .................................................................................................................................. ii Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................... iv Table of contents................................................................................................................ vi List of Tables ........................................................................................................................ x List of Figures .................................................................................................................... xii List of Appendices .......................................................................................................... xiii List of Abbreviations ..................................................................................................... xiv Chapter 1 Introduction ..................................................................................................... 1 1.1 The background and rationale of this thesis .............................................................. 1 1.2 The aims of this thesis ........................................................................................................ 4 1.3 The organization of this thesis ........................................................................................ 6 Chapter 2 Technical vocabulary .................................................................................... 8 2.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 8 2.2 What is technical vocabulary? ......................................................................................... 8 2.3 How to identify technical vocabulary in specialized texts? ................................10 2.3.1 Corpus-based approach ......................................................................................................... 10 2.3.2 Semantics-based approach .................................................................................................. 11 2.3.3 Mixed methods .......................................................................................................................... 13 2.4 What is the coverage of technical vocabulary in specialized texts? .................14 2.5 What is involved in knowing a technical word? ......................................................15 2.5.1 Knowing general aspects of vocabulary ......................................................................... 15 2.5.2 Understanding the subject knowledge ............................................................................ 16 2.5.3 Summary ...................................................................................................................................... 18 2.6 What might make a technical word difficult to learn? ..........................................18 2.7 Technical vocabulary beyond single word units: Lexical bundles ...................21 2.7.1 What are ‘lexical bundles’? .................................................................................................... 22 2.7.2 How to identify lexical bundles in the specialized texts? ........................................ 22 2.7.3 Lexical bundle