This article reports on a corpus-based study of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) vocabulary. It first provides a vocabulary profile of English-medium Traditional Chinese Medicine textbooks and journal articles using Nation’s (2012) British National Corpus/Corpus of Contemporary American English (BNC/COCA 25,000) frequency word lists and supplementary word lists of proper nouns, abbreviations, and compounds. Then, it categorizes items outside Nation’s BNC/COCA into Chinese loan words (e.g., qi, yang) and medical lexis (e.g., cinnamomi, rehmanniae), which cover 5.93% of the TCM Corpora in total. The next analysis focuses on Schmitt and Schmitt’s (2014) high, mid, low-frequency vocabulary framework and how it differs from Western medicine. Finally, a vocabulary load analysis shows that to reach 98%, 13,000 word families plus four supplementary lists and two TCM-specific lists are needed. Together, these analyses provide us with a rounded picture of TCM vocabulary. Implications for pedagogy and suggestions for future research follow.
2.3Overview of lexical profile analysis in specialized texts
2.4Research questions
3.Methodology
3.1Corpus building
3.2Data analysis
4.Results and discussion
4.1Research question 1: What is the lexical profile of TCM textbooks and journal articles, based on Nation’s (2012) BNC/COCA base word lists?
4.2Research question 2: Beyond Nation’s (2012) BNC/COCA base word lists, what vocabulary remains given its cultural and linguistic roots and how can it be classified?
4.3Research question 3: What is the vocabulary load of the English-medium TCM texts?
4.4Research question 4: What is the coverage of high, mid, and low-frequency vocabulary in the TCM Corpora? How does it differ from that of the Western Medicine?
4.4.1Coverage of high, mid, and low-frequency vocabulary in the TCM Corpora
4.4.2Comparison of high, mid, and low-frequency vocabulary in TCM and WM
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