Abstract
This study explores English for specific purposes learners’ understanding of technical words in a previously-developed technical word list in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). The principal aim was to estimate what kind of technical terms pose problems to TCM learners and might therefore merit special attention in instruction. Of particular interest was the question whether there is a divergence in the understanding of technical vocabulary in TCM between Chinese and Western background learners. To achieve these aims, a combination of word association tasks and retrospective interviews was implemented with 11 Chinese and 10 Western background TCM learners. The data showed that both Chinese and Western learners encountered certain difficulties in understanding technical vocabulary in their study. However, their sources of difficulty were different. Comparisons of typical word associations between Chinese and Western learners indicated that there was a degree of divergence in the way these two participant groups understood TCM terms.
Highlights
Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is situated in China, where 24 TCM universities and most other medical institutions provide degrees in the subject (Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China, 2020)
This study aims to investigate whether TCM learners from different language backgrounds understand technical words in the same way
In response to research question 2, this study showed that the divergence in the understanding of the technical words between the two groups of TCM learners was due in large part to different language backgrounds and the frequency of the vocabulary items
Summary
Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is situated in China, where 24 TCM universities and most other medical institutions provide degrees in the subject (Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China, 2020). Students are required to study specialized English as part of their degrees to prepare for communicating in English in global settings. Learners of TCM need a large vocabulary in English to read academic texts (Lu & Coxhead, 2020), and technical vocabulary makes up a substantial proportion of the lexis in written academic texts (Chung & Nation, 2003; Coxhead, 2018). Previous research has shown that learners of English for specific purposes (ESP) have difficulty in understanding, learning, and utilizing technical vocabulary in their studies (Ardasheva & Tretter, 2015; Evans & Morrison, 2011; Ha & Hyland, 2017), even if English is their first language. To help learners and teachers in TCM decide what specialized lexis requires attention, a technical word list of TCM was developed using a written corpus (Lu, 2018), including items such as qi and heart. To optimize the usefulness of such frequency-based wordlists, Martinez and Schmitt (2012) suggested that the potential difficulty of the lexical items for the learners should be taken into consideration
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
