179

Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching
Department of English Studies, Faculty of Pedagogy and Fine Arts, Adam Mickiewicz University, Kalisz

SSLLT 13 (1). 2023. 179-217
https://doi.org/10.14746/ssllt.31677

http://pressto.amu.edu.pl/index.php/ssllt

Specialized vocabulary across languages:
The case of traditional Chinese medicine

Cailing Lu
Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9911-2824
luca@sjtu.edu.cn

Averil Coxhead
Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3392-6961
averil.coxhead@vuw.ac.nz

Abstract
This paper reports on the creation of specialized word lists in traditional Chinese
medicine (TCM), which is a discipline using vocabulary across languages (i.e., Chi-
nese and English) and involves learners with different L1 backgrounds. First, a TCM
Word List of 2,778 specialized words was established from corpora of TCM text-
books and journal articles. Selection criteria included specialized meaning, keyness
in a corpus of general written English compared to the TCM Corpora, and frequency.
The resulting TCM list covered 36.65% of the TCM Corpora but had low coverage
over corpora of general written English and medical English. The TCM Word List was
then divided into three sub-lists based on frequency, and graded into three levels.
Level 1 contains high-frequency lexical items in English (e.g., organ, coating); Level
2 contains items that are mid-, low-frequency, or beyond any frequency levels (e.g.,
pericarpium, metabolism); and Level 3 contains Chinese loan words (e.g., qi, yang).
Last, there is an overlap of 309 word families between this list and an earlier TCM
list by Hsu (2018), which excludes words from the 1st-3rd 1,000 word families in
English. Suggestions for teachers and future research are provided.

Keywords: corpus analysis; keyword analysis; specialized vocabulary; word
lists; Traditional Chinese Medicine



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180

1. Introduction

Demand for skills in health professions accelerates at an unforeseen rate. More
knowledge in medical areas such as traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) could
probably provide us with more solutions for global wellness. TCM has an exten-
sive history of over five millennia. In order to promote its international develop-
ment, China introduced the concept of internationalization of TCM in 1996 (Lin
et al., 2018). As a result, the TCM international trade and market share has been
promoted and its legal status has been established internationally. With such
development, a growing body of research in Traditional Chinese Medicine is be-
ing published in English, and a number of institutions in English-speaking coun-
tries (e.g., Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia) offer TCM as a degree course at the
tertiary level. At the same time, the demand for TCM in Chinese universities has
increased from both first language Chinese speakers and learners from countries
such as the U.K., Vietnam, and Malaysia. The medium of instruction is usually
English for non-Chinese speakers and Mandarin for native Chinese speakers. All
learners need to develop their knowledge of TCM vocabulary in English as they
progress through their studies. Some TCM university programs in China combine
English and TCM majors, whereby students spend their first two years in English
major before undertaking their TCM study. This means English-medium commu-
nication and instruction is of essential importance in this discipline. Similar to
western medical education, students start with learning theory and then move
on to clinical training (Wette & Hawken, 2016). Once working, TCM practitioners
in countries such as New Zealand also have to communicate with patients in
English (Patel & Toossi, 2016).

Vocabulary is often perceived as an area of need by English for Academic
Purposes (EAP) learners and teachers (Evans & Morrison, 2011; Flowerdew &
Miller, 1992). Insufficient specialized vocabulary knowledge is cited as being par-
ticularly important but also difficult (Ardasheva & Tretter, 2015; Evans &
Morrison, 2011; Flowerdew & Miller, 1992). One reason why this vocabulary
poses problems for Traditional Chinese Medicine students is that, like in the case
of students in other scientific disciplines, it is important for them to understand
complex relationships among various scientific phenomena. At the same time,
they need to develop an ability to express these relationships in spoken and
written English (Ardasheva & Tretter, 2015). Secondly, TCM texts have a high vo-
cabulary load (Lu & Coxhead, 2020), which means learners need a large vocab-
ulary to deal with reading in this subject area. This vocabulary can be high-, mid-
or  low-frequency  (Lu  &  Coxhead,  2020;  see  also  Nation,  2016a).  Last  but  not
least, TCM is a discipline which uses vocabulary across languages (i.e., Chinese
and English). This means vocabulary in this field is quite complex. Hsu (2018)



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found that over 10% of the vocabulary in a TCM textbook corpus were borrowed
from Chinese (e.g., qi). She referred to these words as transliterated and noted
that they illustrate the lexical and cultural origin of TCM from China (Hsu, 2018).
TCM texts also contain words with Graeco-Latin origins (e.g., Astragali membra-
nacei) and high-frequency words with specialized meanings, such as heart and
gall bladder. For example, heart controls mind in Chinese culture (Hu & Fong,
2010; Maciocia, 2005), whereas head and mind overlap more in other cultures.
Learners from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds may find such con-
ceptual differences challenging over the course of their studies.

The present study is part of a larger investigation of technical vocabulary
in TCM (Lu, 2018). Part of that study included investigating knowledge of tech-
nical words in TCM possessed by students from different cultural backgrounds.
Lu et al. (2021) found that English L1 speakers encountered difficulty in under-
standing loan words, while Chinese L1 speakers found specialized vocabulary
from low-frequency levels challenging. Their findings suggested that variation in
learners’ linguistic backgrounds should be taken into account in word list devel-
opment to better target specialized vocabulary development, but until now, re-
search into TCM vocabulary has not delineated vocabulary in this way. The cur-
rent study intends to fill part of this gap by grouping the words in the list accord-
ing to their linguistic backgrounds to make the list user-friendly for learners with
different first languages. Specifically, this study has three goals. The primary aim
is to identify specialized vocabulary in Traditional Chinese Medicine and develop
a specialized word list from scratch, that is including high-, mid- and low-fre-
quency vocabulary to support the learning of specialized vocabulary in this dis-
cipline. The second is to explore a way to divide the long list of specialized vo-
cabulary into smaller sets of vocabulary to accommodate the needs of learners
with various L1 backgrounds and vocabulary levels. Finally, this list is compared
to Hsu’s (2018) TCM English word list to bring to light overlaps and differences
between the two TCM word lists to highlight the values of each list for learners.

2. Literature review

2.1. Vocabulary in English-medium TCM texts

Research into vocabulary in written medical English texts has found that they
contain a wide range of vocabulary. Hsu (2013) developed a medical textbook
corpus (15,016,553 running words) and found that it contained a large number
of medical terms (3,474), proper nouns (5,952), and abbreviations (1,427). An-
other feature of medical textbooks is that they contain fewer high-frequency
words than other kinds of texts (Quero & Coxhead, 2018), which is important



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when considering the needs of language learners who might have a small vocab-
ulary size and have not had much exposure to long, complex medical texts prior
to taking up medical studies in English. This is also important when we consider
Nation’s (2016a) point that words can be both technical and high-, mid- or low-
frequency. This means that high-frequency words might also be technical words
in a particular subject area. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, this issue is exacer-
bated because the meanings of high-frequency words such as warm and cold are
central to the field, but quite different to their meanings in English.

Another feature of medical texts is that they have a high vocabulary load,
which means students need to possess a large vocabulary to read English-me-
dium texts in this field. Hsu (2018) found that learners need to know the most
frequent  7,000  word  families  in  English  to  reach  95%  coverage  of  TCM  text-
books, and a vocabulary size of 10,000 to reach 98%.1 Lu and Coxhead (2020)
also found that 7,000-8,000 word families plus proper nouns, marginal words,
transparent compounds, and abbreviations (four supplementary lists), and
TCM-specific words were needed to reach 95% coverage in TCM textbooks and
journal articles. To reach 98% of TCM journal articles, 12,000 word families plus
supplementary and TCM lists were needed compared to a vocabulary size of
13,000 for textbooks. These figures are important because vocabulary research-
ers suggest that English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners tend to have a lim-
ited vocabulary (e.g., Henriksen & Danelund, 2015; Lu & Dang, 2022). One way
to help learners and teachers develop the vocabulary needed for a discipline is
to develop lists of specialized words (Nation, 2016a). Such a list in TCM might be
of great help to its learners as well as teachers and practitioners.

2.2. Two approaches to making specialized word lists

The first approach to developing specialized word lists uses a common core ap-
proach, meaning the specialized lists are built on top of general high-frequency
word lists. This approach was adopted for the development of the Academic
Word  List  (Coxhead,  2000),  which  excluded  the  first  2,000  word  families  of
West’s (1953) General Service List (GSL). This approach assumes that learners
would  have  mastered  the  first  2,000  word  families  of  English.  Table  1  shows
some examples of word lists that use the common core approach for building
medical word lists of various kinds, including general medical English, Nursing,

1 Laufer and Ravenhorst-Kalovski (2010) suggested 95% text coverage as the minimal read-
ing comprehension threshold, while 98% as the optimal reading comprehension threshold.
The former referred to the coverage point at which most readers can reasonably compre-
hend a text, while the latter was the possible coverage point at which a majority of learners
can adequately comprehend the text.



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183

and Traditional Chinese Medicine (e.g., Hsu, 2018; Yang, 2015). The final column
shows the coverage of each list over its source corpora; in this case more than
10% for all the lists. Note that the word lists are all fairly small, at around 600 or
more families, which makes their coverage fairly impressive overall. Smaller lists
make for easier adaptation to classrooms. These specialized lists inherit the lim-
itations of the high-frequency lists they are based on. By excluding high-fre-
quency vocabulary, the lists potentially have not included lexical items that have
a technical meaning.

Table 1 Medicine-related word lists using the common core approach

Study Corpus size Word list List size
Coverage over
source corpora

Yang (2015) 1,006,934 Nursing Academic List 676 word families 13.64%
Wang et al. (2008) 1,093,011 Medical Academic Word List 623 word families 12.24%
Hsu (2018) 13 million TCM English Word List 605 word families 11.42%
Hsu (2013) 15 million Medical Word List 595 word families 10.72%

The second approach builds word lists “from scratch” and includes high-
frequency words (e.g., the Academic Vocabulary List, Gardner & Davies, 2014).
This approach considers specialized vocabulary as a separate set of words which
cut across frequency bands in general English (e.g., Dang, 2019b; Lei & Liu,
2016).  Table  2  shows  examples  of  such  word  lists.  It  is  worth  noting  that  the
specialized word lists in this table are larger than those in Table 1, and in all
cases, their coverage over their source corpora is much higher. This point is im-
portant, because it illustrates the powerful role of high-frequency vocabulary in
the specialized corpora.

Table 2 Stand-alone medicine-related word lists

Study Corpus size Word list List size
Coverage over
source corpora

Fraser (2009) 360,000 Pharmacology Word List 2,000 word families 89.1%
Lei and Liu (2016) 6.2 million  New Medical Academic Word List 965 lemmas over 19.44%
Dang (2019b) 556,074 Medical Spoken Word List 895 word types 13.44%

Word lists based on the discipline-specific core approach are at risk of re-
peating words which have been mastered by the learners (Dang et al., 2017). Fur-
ther, the medically-related word lists in Tables 1 and 2 are mainly based on west-
ern medicine and may be of limited help to TCM learners because of its different
lexical profile from that of Western medicine (Lu & Coxhead, 2020). One exception
is the TCM English word list of Hsu (2018), which is the focus of Section 2.3.



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2.3. Hsu’s (2018) TCM English word list

Hsu (2018) developed a TCM English word list by identifying the most frequent and
evenly distributed word families in a TCM Textbook Corpus that occur in the mid-
and low-frequency bands based on the British National Corpus (BNC) and Corpus of
Contemporary American English (COCA) and developed by Paul Nation (2012). Hsu
selected 605 items for the list based on principles of frequency, dispersion, range,
and expert and learner review. It is important to note the common core approach
taken here: the most frequent 3,000 word families from the BNC/COCA lists were
excluded from this list with the assumption that those words have been acquired
by the EFL medical learners. There is, quite possibly, a considerable number of
words in those high-frequency lists that could be technical. Quero and Coxhead
(2018) found that more than 15% of the items in the first 1,000 of West’s (1953)
GSL and 17% in Coxhead’s (2000) AWL had a medical meaning. Such figures make
high frequency vocabulary difficult to ignore in studies of specialized vocabulary.
The present study sets out to identify specialized vocabulary in a TCM corpus for a
list which is developed from scratch and compare it with Hsu’s (2018) headword list.
It also aims to examine the coverage of this new list over journal articles, which the
students  in  TCM  need  to  read  for  their  studies,  and  two  types  of  textbooks.  To
achieve these goals, this study is guided by the research questions listed below:

1. Which specialized words in the TCM Corpora meet the criteria for inclu-
sion for a TCM Word List?

2. What coverage is provided by Levels 1, 2, and 3 of the TCM Word List,
respectively?

3. Does the TCM Word List coverage differ over journal articles and text-
books in the corpus?

4. What coverage does the TCM Word List provide over a second TCM cor-
pus, general English texts, and other medical texts?

5. How does the TCM Word List compare with Hsu’s (2018) TCM headword list?

3. Methodology

3.1. Developing the corpora

Three corpora2 of Traditional Chinese Medicine were developed for this study
as shown in Table 3: (1) a theory-based textbook corpus, (2) a practice-based

2 The TCM Word List was developed, validated, and reported in a Ph.D thesis by the first author
(Lu, 2018) under the supervision of the second author. For this article, the comparison with
Hsu (2018) was carried out and the conceptualization of the research was extended throughout



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185

textbook corpus, and (3) a journal article corpus. The total corpus size is 3,478,267
words. The textbook corpora represent textbooks used at two different stages of
medical education. The theoretical stage (alternatively, pre-clinical stage) comes
first,  and  is  followed  by  the  clinical  practice  stage.  Textbooks  used  at  those  two
stages are different in nature. Because textbooks are typically longer than journal
articles, far more articles are needed to make up a similar-sized corpus.

Table 3 Overview of the TCM Corpora
Corpus Size Number of texts
Theory-based textbooks 1,171,625 6
Practice-based textbooks 1,109,701 5
TCM journal articles 1,196,941 342
 Total 3,478,267 353

A corpus of fiction, magazines and newspapers was developed to serve as
a comparison corpus to help identify specialized TCM lexis (see Table 4). It was
made up of a roughly equal number of fiction, magazine and newspaper texts,
which were not related to medicine. These texts came from the Corpus of Con-
temporary American English (COCA) (Davies, 2008).

Table 4 Overview of the comparison corpora

Genres Running words
Fiction 5,980,535
Magazines 5,745,610
Newspapers 5,624,990
Total 17,351,135

To validate the TCM Word List, one validating TCM corpus and one Western
Medical corpus were developed. As shown in Table 5, both corpora contain text-
books and journal articles for comparison with the TCM corpora. In principle, the
structure  of  the  validating  TCM  corpus  should  mirror  that  of  the  source  corpora
from which the word list was built (Dang et al., 2017). Because materials in this dis-
cipline are hard to come by, the validating TCM corpus (Table 5) was relatively small.
In relation to the Western Medical corpus, the textbook section consists of
3,059,332  tokens  in  total.  These  textbooks  were  obtained  from  Dr.  Betsy  Quero
(2015), who compiled the corpus for her own research on medical vocabulary. Jour-
nal articles were sourced from the COCA medical corpus (Davies, 2008-).

the  writing  process.  The  same  target  TCM  corpora  were  used  in  Lu  and  Coxhead  (2020)  to
examine the vocabulary load of these texts and this article appeared in the ILT-International
Journal of Applied Linguistics. The TCM specialized list was used as a source for target items in
an article in Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching (Lu et al., 2021).



Cailing Lu, Averil Coxhead

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Table 5 Overview of the validation corpora

Corpus Materials Running words

TCM validating corpus
Textbooks (54,757)

464,752
Journal articles (409,995)

Western Medical corpus
Textbooks (3,059,332)

4,157,483
Journal articles (1,098,151)

3.2. Developing the TCM Word List

We used word types for the development of TCM Word List because members
of word families may not all carry a technical or specialized meaning (Nation,
2016a). To be included in this list, a lexical item had to satisfy criteria of keyness,
meaning, and frequency as described in the following paragraphs.

1. Keyness: more frequent in the TCM corpus than in the comparison cor-
pus  which  is  much  larger  (Scott,  1997).  Wordsmith  Tools  6.0  (Scott,
2012) was used to compute the keyness using chi-square statistics with
a p-value of p < .000001.

2. Meaning: linked semantically to TCM. Based on a study of Chung and
Nation (2004, p. 254), a TCM semantic scale was developed to gauge
that connection (Table 6).

3. Frequency: occur 60 times or more in the TCM Corpora. A comparison
of  frequency  cut-offs  at  33,  40,  50,  55,  60  occurrences  showed  that
fewer types at the cut-off point of 60 did not undermine coverage of this
list. This process also led to a more manageable word list.

Table 6 The semantic rating scale with TCM examples (adapted from Chung &
Nation, 2004, p. 254)

Scales Description Examples
Non-specialized no TCM-related meaning due, summary, box, chapter

Specialized

1. loan word with TCM-related meaning wan, yin, chai, fu
2. TCM-related meaning but the same or
almost the same as general meaning

pain, sweating, efficacy

3. TCM-related meaning but different
from the general meaning

tissue, liver, back

4. TCM-related meaning and only found
in TCM or general medical science

acupuncture, apoptosis, moxi-
bustion

The items which satisfied the above criteria were included in the TCM
Word List. Then, RANGE (Heatley et al., 2002) was used to calculate the coverage
figures  of  this  list  over  the  TCM  Corpora,  the  validating  TCM  corpus,  and  the
Western Medical corpus. The TCM Word List was then divided into three sub-



Specialized vocabulary across languages: The case of traditional Chinese medicine

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lists based on frequency in the TCM Corpora. Each sub-list was divided into three
levels  based  on  the  work  by  Dang  et  al.  (2017),  who  graded  their  Academic
Spoken Word List into four levels to benefit EAP students with different profi-
ciency levels. This approach was adopted because of the unique features of TCM
vocabulary and variations in knowledge and language backgrounds among
learners. To compare the TCM Word List with Hsu’s (2018) TCM headword list,
RANGE was used to create word families. This step resulted in a reduction of our
list to a total of 1,958 word families.

4. Results

4.1. The TCM Word List

A total of 2,778 word types met the selection criteria for inclusion in the TCM
Word List. It covers 36.64% of the TCM Corpora. Table 7 shows the top 20 spe-
cialized words arranged by alphabet and their frequency in the TCM Corpora.
The table also illustrates features and origins of TCM vocabulary. The loan words
(e.g., qi, yang)  are  in  bold  to  make  them  more  visible.  They  appear  with  ex-
tremely high frequency in the TCM texts and are thus key to all learners. Addi-
tionally, some obviously general words such as group and used also appear in
the list because they show a degree of technicality when they appear as part of
highly specialized multiword units in the TCM Corpora. For example, group is a
node word in common collocations such as treatment group, acupoint group,
and acupuncture group, whereas used is often found in combinations with acu-
points and herbal medicine such as SP-9 were used, as well as other collocational
patterns such as widely used, and formula(herb) used.

Table 7 The most frequent 20 items by alphabet in the TCM Word List
Specialized words Occurrences Specialized words Occurrences
acupuncture 8,484 pain 10,252
blood 13,924 patients 7,627
cold 6,415 points 6,229
deficiency 8,956 qi 21,866
group 7,311 radix 7,294
heart 6,760 spleen 6,878
heat 12,039 treatment 13,433
kidney 6,945 used 7,749
liver 9,976 yang 9,800
medicine 6,276 yin 10,453

The full TCM Word List was then divided by their frequency of occurrences
in the TCM Corpora into three sub-lists to make the list more manageable from a



Cailing Lu, Averil Coxhead

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pedagogical perspective. Table 8 shows that Sub-list 1 with the first 1,000 items
has much greater coverage of the TCM corpus (29.97%) than Sub-list 2 with the
next most frequent 1,000 types at nearly 5% coverage. Such a coverage pattern is
typical of word lists in the target corpora which they represented (Coxhead, 2000;
Nation, 2016a). Unsurprisingly, Sub-list 3 has the lowest coverage because it con-
tains only 778 items which are less frequent overall. These coverage figures illus-
trate the power of high-frequency specialized vocabulary in TCM.

Table 8 The sub-lists of the TCM Word List

Sub-list Word types Coverage Examples
1 1,000 29.97% qi, blood, treatment
2 1,000 4.89% detected, laboratory, geng (根)
3 778 1.78% ultrasound, vein, fuling (茯苓)

Note. Sub-lists 1, 2, 3 contain the most frequently-occurring 1-1000, 1001-2000, and 2001-2778 word
types in the TCM Corpora, respectively.

4.2. Levels of the TCM Word List

Table 9 presents the number and coverage of specialized vocabulary in each
level of the sub-lists. The sub-lists of the TCM Word List were divided into three
levels primarily according to their frequency in the BNC/COCA lists by Nation
(2012).  Level  1  contains  items  from  the  1st-3rd  1,000  word  families  of  the
BNC/COCA; Level 2 contains those which fell outside the 1st-3rd 1,000; and
Level 3 is for loan words from Chinese. It is important to mention that some loan
words (e.g., yin, chai) appear at Level 2 because of semiotic coincidences3 be-
tween English and Romanized Chinese (see Lu & Coxhead, 2020 for more de-
tails). Although a considerable number of items (1,325 word types out of 2,778)
in the TCM Word List are at Level 1 from the first 3,000 BNC/COCA word families,
the other 1,245 words fell outside the first 3,000 BNC/COCA word families at
Level 2, and the remaining 218 items are loan words at Level 3. This result means
that nearly half (47.7%) of the items from the list developed from the present
study also occur in general high-frequency vocabulary.

Dividing the list into sub-lists and levels means that frequency is taken into
account both in terms of TCM specialized vocabulary and general English vocab-
ulary. Loan words are also taken into account in the levels. The top ten Chinese
specialized lexical items at Level 3 by frequency are geng, bei, xuehai, waiguan,
mingmen, deqi, bian, shenmen, yue and shou. The TCM specialized words in

3 3 Semiotic coincidences refer to items (e.g., tang, ling) which can either be regarded as an
English word or a loan word borrowed from Chinese, depending on the context of use (Lu &
Coxhead, 2020).



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189

each sub-list and level are presented in Appendices A to I. It means the list can
be adaptable to learners from different L1 backgrounds (e.g., English L1 speak-
ers and Chinese L1 speakers) or at different vocabulary levels.

Table 9 Number and coverage of specialized words at each level of TCM sub-lists

Level
Level 1 Level 2 Level 3

number coverage number coverage number coverage
Sub-list 1 643 19.39% 289 8.13% 68 2.45%
Sub-list 2 465 2.33% 468 2.23% 67 0.33%
Sub-list 3 217 0.49% 478 1.1% 83 0.19%
Total 1,325 22.21% 1,235 11.46% 218 2.97%

Note. Number refers to number of word types

4.3. Coverage of the TCM Word List in the theory- and practice-based textbooks,
and journal articles

The TCM Word List provides the highest coverage over the two sets of textbooks
in the corpora: 40.06% over practice-based and 38.54% over theory-based ones.
Its coverage over the journal articles is somewhat lower at 31.43%. These patterns
are consistent with the findings of Lu and Coxhead (2020), using the same cor-
pora, who found that the journal articles were less demanding than the textbooks
and had more high-frequency vocabulary. It is important to note that the TCM
Word List in the three types of TCM texts is all over 30%, which is similar to find-
ings of technical vocabulary coverage by Chung and Nation (2003) in an anatomy
textbook and Coxhead et al. (2016) in pedagogical written carpentry texts.

4.4. Coverage of the TCM Word List in other corpora

The TCM Word List covers exactly the same percentage over the TCM validating
corpus (31.43%) as it does over the TCM journal article corpus. Its coverage over
the Western Medical texts is 25.32%, which is largely achieved by frequently-
occurring words such as antibiotics, diagnoses, and cell. Its  coverage  over  the
corpus of general English (fiction, newspapers and magazines) is 4.11%, and
items such as brain, arm and chest are largely responsible for that coverage.

4.5. Comparison with Hsu’s (2018) headword list

In total, 309 words overlap between Hsu’s (2018) TCM headword list (605 items)
and our TCM Word List. Acupoint, damp, and evil are examples of words which
are not in Hsu’s list; along with high-frequency items such as warm and wind.
Hsu’s TCM headwords account for 4.87% and 3.71% of the tokens in the TCM



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Corpora and the TCM validating corpus, respectively. A total of 579 and 480 out
of 605 headwords occur in the TCM Corpora and validating corpus. Its coverage
over the TCM Textbook Corpora from our study is slightly higher at 5.71% (570
out of 605). For interest, we also checked coverage of Hsu’s TCM headword list
over the Western Medical Corpora (3.81%), and the general written English Cor-
pora (0.23%). Note that the coverage of Hsu’s (2018) list is lower in the corpora
of our study because we only have the headword list rather than the whole list.
These coverage figures do not undermine the value of Hsu’s (2018) list in any
way.  Appendix  J  presents  a  Common  Core  TCM  List  of  shared  items  between
Hsu’s (2018) headword list and the TCM Word List. This list is of paramount im-
portance to all learners in this discipline.

5. Discussion

In response to research question 1, the findings in this study showed that there is
a large amount of specialized vocabulary (2,778 word types) in Traditional Chinese
Medicine texts, and the lists discussed here did not include lexical items that are
technical but did not meet the selection criteria for the final word list. Especially,
the development of specialized word lists using either a common core or disci-
pline-specific approach is important to discuss here. This study shows that starting
from scratch for selecting items for a TCM word list results in, firstly, a much larger
word list, and secondly, much higher coverage than a word list that does not in-
clude high-frequency technical items. Further, the TCM Word List presented in this
article took a wide view of specialized words, including Chinese loan words as well
as high-, mid- and low-frequency words that met the criteria for inclusion in the
list. Discipline-specific word lists can provide a short-cut to the most useful words
in various disciplines by identifying and ranking lexical items to help with aca-
demic reading texts that usually have heavy vocabulary loads (Nation, 2013,
2016b). The findings of this article provide strong support for this approach. TCM
students can be motivated to learn words from such specialized lists because they
can clearly see the relationship between what they can learn from this list and
their subject courses, which is particularly important for English for Specific Pur-
poses (ESP) learners (Coxhead & Hirsh, 2007; Hyland, 2016). These findings thus
provide more solid evidence for how specialized word lists can better serve ESP
learners’ needs (Durrant, 2013, 2016; Hyland & Tse, 2007).

In answer to research question 2, the coverage figures of the three levels
of TCM Word List can be found in Table 9. There are several points that are worth
attention. First, high-frequency vocabulary which has a technical meaning in
TCM (Sub-list 1, Level 1 of the TCM list) is vital for learners. The coverage of the
TCM  source  corpus  at  just  over  19%  by  643  types  (see  Table  9)  demonstrates



Specialized vocabulary across languages: The case of traditional Chinese medicine

191

this point. Creating the TCM specialized list from scratch resulted in (1) a much
larger list than Hsu’s (2018) list, and (2) quite different coverage figures. Our
TCM  Word  List  covers  more  than  one  third  of  the  TCM  Corpora  in  this  study,
compared to nearly 5% of Hsu’s (2018). The corpora used in the current study,
however, is not large and the validation corpus could be better balanced to make
it more similar to the source corpora from which the TCM Word List was devel-
oped. Second, the TCM Word List illustrates how different L1 backgrounds and
vocabulary knowledge can be taken into account through dividing the list into
levels and sub-lists. The Chinese loan words are at their own level and can be
the target of the non-Chinese speakers, in particular the most frequent loan
words. Last, the division also makes the longer word list more manageable for
teachers and learners (Coxhead, 2000; Dang & Webb, 2016), and may help en-
courage learners to study so as to progress from items in their current vocabu-
lary knowledge to items beyond it (Webb & Chang, 2012).

With regard to research question 3, the present study showed that the TCM
Word List covers 36.64% of its source corpus, and over 30% of the individual cor-
pora of journal articles, practice, and theory textbooks in TCM. This means the
learners will encounter TCM Word List items frequently in these texts. As already
noted, these findings resonate with other studies which use different approaches
to identifying discipline-specific vocabulary for word lists (Chung & Nation, 2004;
Coxhead & Demecheleer, 2018; Coxhead et al., 2016).

In answer to research question 4, this study revealed that the coverage of the
TCM Word List in the TCM validating corpus and the TCM journal article corpus is
the same. This is possibly because the validating corpus contains mostly journal ar-
ticles. This finding demonstrates that this list captures the most useful specialized
words in this field. In addition, the TCM Word List provides higher coverage over the
TCM Corpora than the Western Medical corpus. It suggests that this list better rep-
resents specialized vocabulary in TCM rather than in Western Medicine. Further,
the lower coverage of the list over the general written English corpus indicates that
this list contains words which are relatively rare in general written English. Again,
these results are consistent with results of other specialized word lists over validat-
ing corpora (e.g., Coxhead, 2000; Dang et al., 2017; Gardner & Davies, 2014).

Concerning research question 5, the TCM Word List developed from this
study has a number of advantages over that of Hsu (2018). First, it included high-
frequency vocabulary. This is of paramount importance as recent studies have
consistently reported that EFL learners are unlikely to have mastery of high-fre-
quency vocabulary in various EFL contexts (e.g., China, Iran, Denmark, Vietnam)
at secondary school (e.g., Laufer, 1998; Nguyen, 2020; Olmos, 2009; Stæhr, 2008;
Sun & Dang, 2020), and university levels (e.g., Lu & Dang, 2022; Nguyen & Webb,
2017; Nurweni & Read, 1999). In particular, those studies have shown that EFL



Cailing Lu, Averil Coxhead

192

university students have not mastered the first 2,000 word families in English
(e.g., Akbarian, 2010; Dang, 2019a; Matthews & Cheng, 2015). Moreover, Lu et
al. (2021) revealed that some TCM learners have difficulty understanding tech-
nical meanings of the 1st-3rd 1,000 word families (e.g., channel). The TCM Word
List can help address this issue by ensuring that high-frequency items are in-
cluded in Level 1. Second, Level 2 of this list also includes items which fell out-
side the high-, mid-, and low-frequency BNC/COCA levels. Such items are im-
portant in TCM but are not so frequent, meaning learners might not meet them
often in general language use (Ardasheva & Tretter, 2015; Nation, 2013). Last,
the inclusion of the loan words at Level 3 makes this unique set of vocabulary
salient to learners from different linguistic backgrounds. Their relative value in
this discipline is now more visible in comparison to other specialized words.

Overall, this study is among the few word list studies which systematically
investigated specialized vocabulary in Traditional Chinese Medicine, including
vocabulary across the Chinese and English languages. It also provides insights
into the possible ways in which the specialized word list can be adapted to TCM
students from different L1 backgrounds and existing vocabulary levels.

6. Pedagogical implications

This study has several implications for a range of possible users of the frequency-
based TCM Word List, including materials writers, teachers, and learners. For
example, the list can guide the setting of goals for teachers, learners and course
designers over short and long terms (Nation, 2013). Working with any list has to
be more than recitation and rote learning, although such memorization activi-
ties can be useful. A principled approach is needed to take into account the fea-
tures of the vocabulary in the TCM Word List and the learners’ lexical knowledge
and language backgrounds. First, the current TCM Word List contains high-fre-
quency specialized words that were not included by Hsu’s (2018) list, meaning
the current list may be more useful for learners at the initial stages of study. At
the beginning of a TCM course, the teachers can establish the learning goals
depending on their students’ L1 backgrounds or existing levels of general vocab-
ulary. New learners to this field could begin, for example, with Sub-list 1, Level
1 and identify words and the TCM meanings they already know. Importantly, all
learners would need to ensure that they understand and are able to express the
TCM meaning of high-frequency words, rather than relying on the everyday
meaning of these words. Examples of such kind of high-frequency items with
specialized meanings are fire, water, and flow. Second, speakers of languages
other than Chinese might want to focus on learning to recognize and understand
the Chinese loan words in particular, since they would need to learn both the



Specialized vocabulary across languages: The case of traditional Chinese medicine

193

word form and TCM-related concept. Examples of such words include shenshu,
zao and xuan. As suggested by one of the reviewers, Chinese loan words in re-
lation to acupoints and herbs may be better learnt when they are accompanied
by pictures, video, or realia to non-Chinese native speakers. Another way to
group the learning of the specialized items would be through the main sub-
fields, such as herbal medicine (e.g., wallichii, moxa), acupuncture (e.g., acu-
pressure, needle) and Chinese massage (e.g., qi, manipulation). Third, the TCM
Word List includes specialized words that are shared with Western medicine.
English as L1 speakers, L2 learners, and EFL learners who are learning TCM
would need help with learning these words because they might not have had
much exposure to these long, Graeco-Latin items previously. There are clearly
several such categories or groups of items in the list, such as organs and parts of
the body (e.g., kidney, heart, knees) and adjectives (e.g., empty, fried, choppy),
that many people might already recognize in general English or from exposure
to medical English. These lexical items would require checking to ensure that
the discipline-specific meaning is also known. Medical terms that are shared
with Western medicine, such as anti-inflammatory, cardiovascular, and analge-
sic, could be learned through developing knowledge of roots and affixes (Nation,
2013), because these words are often made up of word parts which learners
need  to  learn  to  recognize  and  use.  For  example,  the  root cardi(o)- (meaning
heart), the affix -vascul (meaning vessel), and the affix -ar (meaning pertaining
to) make up cardiovascular. Cardi(o)- can also combine with -tocography to form
cardiotocography (Hutton, 2006). Knowing the meaning of roots and affixes and
being able to identify them in longer medical words is important for word recog-
nition skills. Learners can use this knowledge to guess the meaning of an unfa-
miliar word from context, and then check whether the meaning of this word has
been successfully inferred (Nation, 2013).

The TCM Word List provides a point of reference for teachers. This is im-
portant  in  ESP  for  teachers  who  might  not  have  expertise  in  TCM  but  are  re-
quired to teach it. These practitioners can use the list to identify specialized
words in texts according to the levels, design materials so that they contain and
repeat specialized words to help with learning, and organize learning activities
in relation to specialized words. This can help the learners to develop and con-
solidate TCM specialized vocabulary knowledge in meaningful ways. They can
highlight specialized words in the TCM texts, thereby causing the words to stand
out. Such technique will likely draw the attention of the learners. It is important
to ensure that learners work on developing their TCM vocabulary across Na-
tion’s (2007) Four Strands of meaning-focused input (reading and listening), lan-
guage-focused learning, meaning-focused output (writing and speaking), and
fluency development. The list and the strands can provide a framework for ESP



Cailing Lu, Averil Coxhead

194

courses for activities, course design and instruction (see Hirsh & Coxhead, 2009;
Nation & Yamamoto, 2012 for more).

Last, items in the TCM Word List can act as a guide in the assessment and
testing of specialized vocabulary knowledge (Nation, 2016a). For instance, test
developers could sample items from each sub-list and level to write the lexical
components of a test. The testing and assessment, however, should be aligned
with the overall learning goals as well as the actual activities in teaching and
learning specialized vocabulary (Malmström et al., 2018). For example, if the
teaching activities only involve receptive learning (e.g., form-meaning recogni-
tion) of certain specialized words, the testing should reflect such receptive as-
pects of knowing the target words.

7. Limitations and directions for future research

Limitations of this study include the relatively small corpora and the focus on sin-
gle words over multiword units. Future studies could use larger corpora to further
validate the list. There are several possible directions for future research, includ-
ing analyzing technical abbreviations in various academic disciplines, and looking
into the vocabulary used in other types of specialized language, including class
handouts and multimodal texts. Similarly, studies in medical contexts could also
investigate vocabulary in spoken discourse (see Dang, 2018 and Lessard-Clouston,
2010 for examples). These types of discourse are of great importance to the de-
velopment of disciplinary literacy. In addition, it is equally important to explore
specialized multiword units in ESP contexts, which might provide some new in-
sights into the nature of specialized vocabulary. Finally, research that looks into
the learning and testing of specialized vocabulary would be valuable.

8. Conclusion

This study reported on the development and validation of a specialized word list
using a discipline-specific approach in Traditional Chinese Medicine, which
draws on vocabulary across languages (i.e., Chinese and English). The TCM Word
List is large, with 2,778 items, but has been classified into various sub-lists and
levels to make it more manageable. It has similar coverage over a second TCM
corpus and low coverage over a corpus of general English, which suggests that it
captures items that are specific to this discipline. By comparison with Hsu’s (2018)
TCM headword list, 309 common core headwords were identified. This study
illustrates the large amount of specialized vocabulary, and suggests ways in
which that teachers and learners might work with a specialized word list to help
with learning this essential vocabulary in that discipline. Further, the approach



Specialized vocabulary across languages: The case of traditional Chinese medicine

195

used to develop and divide a discipline-specific word list provides a possible di-
rection for future work on specialized vocabulary which targets at learners from
various linguistic backgrounds and with different vocabulary levels.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We would like to thank Professor Mirosław Pawlak, Professor Joanna Zawodniak and
the two anonymous reviewers for their useful feedback, which has improved the
quality of this article in different ways. We would also like to express our sincere
thanks to their support on the topic of specialized vocabulary in the discipline of
Traditional Chinese Medicine.



Cailing Lu, Averil Coxhead

196

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APPENDIX A

Sub-list 1 of the TCM Word List at Level 1

Note. The word types were arranged according to their frequency in the TCM Corpora. The concordance lines of
word types falling into a single lemma (e.g., point, points) were checked to see if they had similar meanings and
patterns of use in the TCM Corpora. If so, they were combined into a single entry in the word list as point(s).

1. blood
2. treatment
3. heat
4. pain
5. use(d)/using
6. patient(s)
7. group(s)
8. heart
9. cold
10. medicine(s)
11. point(s)
12. symptom(s)
13. study
14. body
15. wind
16. tongue
17. stomach
18. clinical
19. channel(s)
20. low(er)
21. damp
22. formula(s/e)
23. effect(s)
24. disease(s)
25. dampness
26. fire
27. result
28. pattern(s)
29. control(led/s)
30. case(s)
31. chest
32. clear(s/ing)
33. vessel(s)
34. add(ed)
35. related
36. water
37. trail(s)
38. mind
39. red
40. data
41. method(s)
42. significant
43. function(s)
44. western
45. main
46. dry

47. skin
48. condition(s)
49. cause(s/d/ing)
50. level(s)
51. treat(ed/ing/s)
52. organ(s)
53. cell(s)
54. feeling
55. factor(s)
56. compared
57. participants
58. severe
59. excess
60. therapy/therapies
61. medical
62. significantly
63. manifestation(s)
64. flow
65. coating
66. health
67. painful
68. system(s)
69. internal
70. food(s)
71. include(d/ing)
72. women
73. depression
74. effective
75. normal
76. quality(ies)
77. principle(s)
78. indicate(d/s/ing)
79. traditional
80. yellow
81. activity/activities
82. disorder(s)
83. weak
84. empty
85. associated
86. shan
87. cough(ing)
88. model(s)
89. middle
90. age
91. bleeding
92. burner(s)

93. practice
94. addition(s)
95. primary
96. throat
97. signs
98. excessive
99. rat(s)
100. area(s)
101. expression(s)
102. swelling
103. full
104. test(s)
105. sweat(ing/s)
106. mental
107. upper
108. brain
109. mouth
110. powder
111. pale
112. difference(s)
113.increase(d/s/ing)
114. location
115. stage(s)
116. changes
117. indication(s)
118. emotional
119. warm(ing)
120. movement
121. thin
122. combined
123. descend(ing/s)
124. rate
125. combination(s)
126. fullness
127. deep
128. rapid
129. min
130. muscle(s)
131. root
132. risk
133. problems
134. external
135. criterion(a)
136. region
137. cancer
138. physical

139. period(s)
140. nature
141. pressure
142. form(s)
143. poor
144. difficult
145. stimulation
146. loss
147. lead(ing/s)
148. interior
149. performed
150.practitioner(s)
151. action(s)
152. mean
153. lack
154. relationship(s)
155. intervention(s)
156. transformation
157. thirst
158. development(s)
159. outcome(s)
160. resolve(s/d)
161. invasion
162. process(es)
163. neck
164. score(s)
165.supplement(ing)
166. soul
167. hot
168. evidence
169. connecting
170. strong
171. decrease(d/s)
172. protein(s)
173. drug(s)
174. similar
175. reduce(d/ing/s)
176. sleep
177. spirit
178. theory
179. major
180. source
181. statistical
182. stroke
183. energy(ies)
184. injury



Specialized vocabulary across languages: The case of traditional Chinese medicine

201

185. modern
186. pregnancy
187. eye
188. affect(ed/s/ing)
189. observed
190. characteristics
191. ye
192. cycle
193. stress
194. tissue(s)
195. ban
196. applied
197. follow
198. improvement(s)
199. response(s)
200. drain(ing)
201. influence(s)
202. weight
203. frequent
204. standard(s)
205. anxiety
206. diet
207. dryness
208. involved
209. mice
210. conducted
211. positive
212. transform(ing)
213. surface
214. benefit(s)
215. inability
216. phase(s)
217. hospital(s)
218. sample(s)
219. subjects
220. potential
221. temperature
222. dose(s)
223.improve(d/ing/s)
224. arm
225. healthy
226. size(s)
227. mechanism(s)
228. receive(d/ing/s)
229. shoulder
230. intension
231. governing
232. defensive
233. sea
234. infection(s)
235. taste
236. value(s)
237. frequency(ies)
238.promote(s/ing)
239.regulate(s/ing/d)

240. vision
241. knee(s)
242. difficulty
243. eating
244. original
245. weakness
246. bitter
247. comparison(s)
248. characteriz(s)ed
249. ability
250. discharge(s)
251. damage(s)
252. leg(s)
253. resulting
254. rising
255. aspect(s)
256. moves
257.randomiz(s)ed
258. events
259. measure(d/s)
260.preparation(s)
261. sexual
262. bone(s)
263. memory
264. ear(s)
265. position
266. exercise
267.identify(ied/ing)
268. scale(s)
269. variation
270. animal(s)
271. swollen
272. individual
273. occur(s)
274. calm(s)
275. rebellious
276. nose
277. experimental
278. illness
279. provide(d/s)
280. infertility
281. conventional
282. circulation
283. joint(s)
284. stiffness
285. current
286. sudden
287. obtained
288. strengthen(s)
289. active
290. thick
291. eliminate(s/ed)
292. heaviness
293. functional
294. tiredness

295. spiritual
296. breath(ing)
297. develop(ed)
298. breast
299. loose
300.demonstrate(d/s)
301. strength(s)
302. approach
303. injection(s)
304. doctors
305. anger
306. assess(ed/ing)
307. located
308. defined
309. mild
310. oral
311. ingredients
312. reduction
313. desire
314. average
315. floating
316. prevent(s)
317. balance
318. directly
319. evaluation
320. stops
321. production
322. reinforcing
323. application
324. accompanied
325. administration
326. remedy
327. basis
328. growth
329. safety
330. fur
331. breathlessness
332. strategies
333. direct(ing)
334. provide(d/s)
335. consumption
336. daily
337. alternative
338. purple
339. nerve(s)
340. irregular
341. effectiveness
342. intensity
343. relatively
344. restlessness
345. evaluate(ing)
346. objective
347. central
348. emotion(s)
349. useful

350. index
351. negative
352. presence
353. element(s)
354. surgery
355. modifications
356. uncooked
357. complex
358. identification
359. restore(s/ing)
360. tip
361. failure
362. products
363. formation
364. sang
365. female(s)
366. divided
367. experienced
368. collected
369. immune
370. male(s)
371. determine(d)
372. examination
373. relieve
374. heaven
375. relevant
376. scientific
377. enters(ing)
378. colour
379. dependent
380. release(s)
381. gene(s)
382. mainly
383. produce(d)
384. significance
385. underlying
386. centre
387. limited
388. suffering
389. concentration
390. drink
391. absence
392. network
393. redness
394. opens
395. shortness
396. management
397. presented
398. branch
399. marked
400. specifically
401. population
402. origin
403. pronounced
404. expressed



Cailing Lu, Averil Coxhead

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405. sadness
406. conception
407. constitution
408. random
409. severity
410. ache(s)
411. moderate
412. containing
413. burning
414. extract(s/ed)
415. alcohol
416. selection
417. mental
418. aged
419. importance
420. compounds
421. extraordinary
422. visual
423. carried
424. components
425. relative
426. chills
427. classical
428. inner
429. degree
430. randomly

431. technique
432. variable(s)
433. excluded
434. proper
435. smooth
436. modified
437. core
438. fried
439. status
440. gate
441. understanding
442. chemical
443. distribution
444. downward(s)
445. clinic(s)
446. dosage(s)
447. fright
448. signaling
449. unable
450. reflect(s/ing)
451. helps
452. establish(ed)
453. regulation
454. masses
455. suitable
456. observation(s)

457. depth
458. examine(d)
459. transporting
460. medicinal
461. insufficient
462. responsible
463. birth
464. correlation(s)
465. consciousness
466. corresponding
467. prevention
468. revealed
469. nervous
470. stepping
471. chosen
472. recovery
473. exhaustion
474. structure(s)
475. fixed
476. procedure(s)
477. repeated
478. protective
479. sequence
480. manifest
481. complications
482. relation

483. users
484. agents
485. linking
486. correspond(s)
487.measurement(s)
488. psychological
489. reaction
490. substances
491. sensitivity
492. confirmed
493. extreme
494. blinding
495. contrast
496. investigate(d)
497. sore
498. consistent
499. superior
500. typical
501. clinically
502. biological
503. guidelines
504. wasting
505. interaction(s)
506. initial
507. tendency



Specialized vocabulary across languages: The case of traditional Chinese medicine

203

APPENDIX B

Sub-list 1 of the TCM Word List at Level 2

1. yin
2. liver
3. deficiency(ies)
4. acupuncture
5. radix
6. kidney(s)
7. spleen
8. phlegm
9. pulse(s)
10. decoction(s)
11. lung(s)
12. herb(s)
13. syndrome(s)
14. tang
15. rhizoma
16. chronic
17. stagnation
18. fluid(s)
19. fu
20. herbal
21. stasis
22. fructus
23. abdominal
24. bladder
25. pathogenic
26. tonify(ies/ing)
27. exterior
28. urine
29. ling
30. obstruction(s)
31. intestine(s)
32. prescription(s)
33. deficient
34. essence(s)
35. acute
36. diagnosis
37. fever
38. urination
39. pill(s)
40. nourish(es/ing)
41. semen
42. urinary
43. vomiting
44. dizziness
45. gallbladder
46. wan
47. diabetes
48. needle(s)
49. dang
50. abdomen

51. induced
52. needling
53. moxibustion
54. cortex
55. limb(s)
56. herba
57. moxa
58. sensation(s)
59. constipation
60. efficacy
61. stool(s)
62. uterus
63. nausea
64. penetrating
65. lateral
66. insomnia
67. acupoint(s)
68. glucose
69. pathology(ies)
70. adverse
71. pathological
72. vacuity
73. differentiation
74. dong
75. sham
76. hypertension
77. therapeutic
78. mucus
79. tian
80. retention
81. serum
82. asthma
83. placebo
84. fang
85. distension
86. sticky
87. wiry
88. diagnostic
89. fatigue
90. rehmanniae
91. distention
92. pericardium
93. headaches
94. tinnitus
95. expel(s)
96. diarrh(o)ea
97. yuan
98. acupressure
99. scanty
100. slippery

101. sclerotium
102. duration
103. menstrual
104. acid(s)
105. glycyrrhizae
106. appetite
107. lumbar
108. disharmony(ies)
109. angelicae
110. cocos
111. officinalis
112. chinensis
113. poriae
114. citri
115. oedema
116. distil
117. palpitation(s)
118. complexion
119. atractylodis
120. numbness
121. median(s)
122. ethereal
123. sinensis
124. oedema
125. ginseng
126. aversion
127. sinew(s)
128. paeoniae
129. insulin
130. administered
131. medicinals
132. uralensis
133. greasy
134. orifice(s)
135. diabetic
136. flos
137. inflammatory
138. turbid
139. backache
140. menstruation
141. onset
142. dysfunction
143. tong
144. chai
145. gen
146. inflammation
147. massage
148. irritability
149. bowel(s)
150. ascending

151. protocol(s)
152. upward(s)
153. marrow
154. activation
155. nasal
156. physiological
157. ovulation
158. chemotherapy
159. diagnosed
160. spine
161. sperm
162. subtractions
163. agitation
164. astragali
165. bi
166. prescribe(d)
167.macrocephalae
168. oppression
169. physician(s)
170. pericarpium
171. ascend(s)
172. pathogen(s)
173. pathways
174. epilepsy
175. tuber
176. nutritive
177. metabolism
178. ramulus
179. blurred
180. cerebral
181. wheezing
182. febrile
183. medication(s)
184. seu
185. apoptosis
186. cinnamomi
187. elbow
188. contraction
189. uterine
190. inclusion
191.invigorate(s/ing)
192. itching
193. needled
194. anterior
195. parameters
196. dull
197. respiratory
198. praeparata
199. toxicity
200. heterogeneity



Cailing Lu, Averil Coxhead

204

201. profuse
202.complementary
203. toxin(s)
204. superficial
205. medication
206. obstructing
207. costal
208. radicis
209. deviation
210. aetiology
211. epigastrium
212. spinal
213. artery(ies)
214. tumor(s)
215. caulis
216. beneficial
217. facial

218. reticulatae
219. toxic
220. cassiae
221. ophiopogonis
222. miscarriage(s)
223. midline
224. tonification
225. perpendicular
226. stagnant
227. diaphragm
228. discomfort
229. poria
230. atrophy
231.acupuncturist(s)
232. dampness
233. dioscoreae
234. medial

235. renal
236. cardiac
237. corporeal
238. incidence
239. disperse(s)
240. subdues
241. gong
242.harmonize(s/ing)
243. intake
244. allergic
245. oppositae
246. auricular
247.gastrointestinal
248. glutinosae
249. proliferation
250. spontaneous
251. fen

252. moutan
253. upright
254. oblique
255. fibrosis
256. japonici
257. pinelliae
258. intestinal
259. lactiflorae
260. obstructed
261.miltiorrhizae
262. impairment
263. wrist



Specialized vocabulary across languages: The case of traditional Chinese medicine

205

Appendix C

Sub-list 1 of the TCM Word List at Level 3

1. qi 18. sanyinjiao 35. sha 52. lieque
2. yang 19. zusanli 36. gou 53. qihai
3. zi 20. xiao 37. luo 54. zhishi
4. shen 21. xie 38. xiong 55. cang
5. zhi 22. xia 39. xuan 56. baihui
6. cao 23. zhong 40. neiguan 57. yanglingquan
7. pi 24. zao 41. taixi 58. gua
8. jiao 25. qin 42. po 59. hou
9. mu 26. huo 43. quchi 60. dou
10. shi 27. hegu 44. niu 61. qiao
11. sheng 28. shenshu 45. pishu 62. xian
12. jing 29. jie 46. zhen 63. zhaohai
13. ji 30. zheng 47. xue 64. fengchi
14. shu 31. xing 48. xin 65. zangfu
15. cun 32. taichong 49. rou 66. fenglong
16. xiang 33. guanyuan 50. zang 67. feishu
17. lian 34. zhongwan 51. yinlingquan 68. zhongji



Cailing Lu, Averil Coxhead

206

APPENDIX D

Sub-list 2 of the TCM Word List at Level 1

1. detected
2. survival
3. difficulties
4. independent
5. laboratory
6. techniques
7. exposure
8. ancient
9. allocation
10. childhood
11. flows
12. modification
13. passage(s)
14. requires
15. variety
16. attacks
17. properties
18. reactions
19. characteristic
20. connect(s/ed)
21. pregnant
22. normally
23.generate(d/ing)
24. component
25. content(s)
26. stimulate(s/d)
27. limitation(s)
28. increases
29. internally
30. presentation
31. articles
32. contain(s/ed)
33. tested
34. context
35. correct
36. unclear
37. experiment(s)
38.manifest(s/ing/ed)
39. resistance
40. transportation
41. individuals
42. solution
43. variations
44. depend(s/ing)
45. suffer(ed/s)
46. adopted
47. stiff
48. sinking
49. watery
50. participant

51. soreness
52. detection
53. locate
54. tension
55. occur(red/ring)
56. formed
57. dietary
58. functioning
59. movements
60. environment
61. extremities
62. sessions
63. referred
64. supplements
65.derive(d/ing/s)
66. fall(s/ing)
67. gathering
68. illnesses
69. integrated
70. minor
71. simultaneously
72. density
73. concept(s)
74. fertility
75. capacity
76. imbalance(s)
77. continuous
78. methodological
79. portion
80. complicated
81. infant(s)
82. intense
83. signal
84. randomization
85. substance
86. achieve(d)
87. enter
88. transform(ed/s)
89. positions
90. perspective(s)
91. practices
92. regions
93. describe
94. shock
95. appearance
96. develop(ing/s)
97. stronger
98. compound
99. elderly
100. binding

101. cycles
102. electrical
103. nan
104. contribute(s)
105. coupled
106. similarity
107. labour
108. manipulation
109. aim(s/ed)
110. controlling
111. recruited
112. boost(s)
113.eliminating
114. extraction
115. progression
116. tube(s)
117. virus(es)
118. exercises
119. raw
120. stable
121. accuracy
122. emission
123. experiences
124. involve(s/ing)
125. molecular
126. employed
127. produce(s/ing)
128. quantitative
129. enhance(d)
130. manual
131. inserted
132. removes
133. assigned
134. compare(ing)
135. effectively
136. situations
137. vital
138. thirsting
139. blind
140. explore(d)
141. linked
142. persistent
143. blockage
144. curative
145. motor
146. transport
147. calming
148. collapse
149. injure(s)
150. produces

151. reflected
152. stored
153. behaviour
154. elevated
155. manner
156. peak
157. resulted
158. sufficient
159. blocked
160. depressive
161. examinations
162. substantial
163. ingredient
164. strengthening
165. cure(d)
166. percentage
167. resolving
168. disturbance(s)
169. angle
170. gender
171.maintain(ed/ing)
172. composed
173. relieve(ing/s/d)
174. energetic
175. present(s)
176. approaches
177. prevent(ing/s)
178. counter
179. concentrations
180. cool(s/ing)
181. distinguish
182. markedly
183. strain
184. aching
185. drains
186. principal
187. invasions
188. stimulate(ing)
189. constant
190. healing
191. outer
192. remedies
193. obtain
194. warmth
195. damaged
196. exhibited
197. fundamental
198. strain(ing/ed)
199. bacterial
200. evil(s)



Specialized vocabulary across languages: The case of traditional Chinese medicine

207

201. participate(ing)
202. restless
203. variance
204.accumulate(d/s/ing)
205. mortality
206. reverse
207. regulatory
208. emphasis
209. injected
210. adjusted
211. disturbed
212. rapidly
213. constitutional
214. theories
215. validity
216. decline
217. blind
218. correlated
219. orally
220. tightness
221. courses
222. stopping
223. quicken(s)
224. treasures
225. respondents
226.correspodence(s)
227. inadequate
228. occurrence
229. standardized
230. arise(s)
231. simultaneous
232. tenderness
233. proportion
234. flowing
235. assist(ed)
236. removing
237. fatty
238. focuses
239. helpful
240. unblock
241. hardness
242. integration
243. collecting
244. excellent
245. marker(s)

246. influenced
247. separation
248. bacteria
249. presents
250. involvement
251. profiles
252. separated
253. statistics
254. chemicals
255. reaches
256. stones
257.accompanying
258. allocated
259. equivalent
260. warms
261. balanced
262. representative
263. rises
264. scatter(s/ing)
265. perceived
266. successfully
267. ya
268. attributed
269. frustration
270. confusion
271. thickness
272. expert
273. sided
274. distinct
275. fertile
276. mode
277. preference
278. quantity
279. cloudy
280. depressed
281. presenting
282. psychiatric
283. toes
284. generalized
285. weaken(s)
286. definition
287.prescription(s)
288. sores
289. consequence
290. implies

291. paired
292. radiating
293. screening
294. subgroup
295. respective
296. sighing
297. damaging
298. differ(ed)
299. distributed
300. oils
301. rebellion
302. reinforce(d)
303. varied
304. benefiting
305. lifting
306. disability
307. drying
308. flavors
309. mouse
310. retained
311. curve
312. hypothesis
313. radical
314. recruitment
315. coldness
316. documented
317. emerges
318. processing
319. confirm(s)
320. govern(s)
321. imaging
322. incomplete
323. specificity
324. sympathetic
325. circulate(s/ing)
326. interpreted
327. pretreatment
328. classics
329. mechanical
330. observe
331. formulation(s)
332. heavenly
333. indicator(s)
334. stained
335. delayed

336. processed
337. steaming
338. frontal
339. isolated
340. partially
341. symptomatic
342. taxation
343. emptiness
344. participation
345. bluish
346. lowering
347. determination
348. discrimination
349. guiding
350. relaxation
351. cools
352. selective
353. vary(ies)
354. combining
355. instrument(s)
356. integrative
357. partial
358. reactive
359. acquisition
360. cultured
361. habits
362. combines
363. decreasing
364. disruption
365. palms
366. behavioral
367. comparable
368. disc
369. inappropriate
370. parallel
371. situated
372. transferred
373. withdrawal
374. consultation
375. evident
376. indices
377. infectious
378. measuring
379.phenomenon(a)
380. spreads



Cailing Lu, Averil Coxhead

208

APPENDIX E

Sub-list 2 of the TCM Word List at Level 2

1. salviae
2. wen
3. tan
4. zingiberis
5. importance
6. induce(s)
7. membranacei
8. abnormal
9. cardiovascular
10. patent
11. tract
12. receptor(s)
13. impaired
14. alismatis
15. vertigo
16. inhibition
17. membrane(s)
18. vaginal
19. digestive
20. enuresis
21. cholesterol
22. concomitant
23. prevalence
24.activate(d/s/ing)
25. tendon(s)
26. trichosanthis
27. dementia
28. lipid(s)
29. sour
30. cognitive
31. sputum
32. arthritis
33. hui
34. paralysis
35. coronary
35. rhei
36. saline
36. curcumae
37. vascular
37. defecation
38. classified
39. peripheral
40. rehmannia
41. expel(ling/led/s)
42. pulmonary
43. cavity(ies)
44. collaterals
45. posterior
46. subdue(s)
47. turbidity

48. ulcer(s)
49. corni
50. scutellariae
51.electroacupuncture
52. lycii
53. palpation
54. pungent
55. incontinence
56. metabolic
57. exiting
58. manic
59. rhinitis
60. cytokine(s)
61. bile
62. prolapse
63. jaundice
64. obesity
65. ischemic
66. ligustici
67. median
68. schisandrae
69. exogenous
70. recurrent
71. caution
72. neurons
73. angina
74. myocardial
75. pruni
76. mania
77. pharmacological
78. amenorrhoea
79. fasting
80. genital(s)
81. hepatitis
82. pivot
83. subjective
84. ternatae
85. motility
86. antibiotics
87. granule(s)
88. obstruct(s)
89. prolonged
90. hao
91. applicable
92. coptidis
93. invading
94. lesion(s)
95. divergent
96. viral
97. alleviate(s/d)

98. antibody(ies)
99. ischemia
100.itching
101. wallichii
102. choppy
103.inhibit(ed/ing/s)
104. analgesic
105. nourishment
106. phellodendri
107. saliva
108. umbilicus
109. cum
110. insufficiency
111. kit
112. overwork
113. infarction
114. incubated
115. prostate
116. antioxidant
117. dispersing
118. fibromyalgia
119. atractylodes
120. cornu
121. psoriasis
122. embryo(s)
123. gardeniae
124. plasma
125. propensity
126. spasm(s)
127. residual
128. fetus
129. diameter
130. accordance
131. hormone(s)
132. malaria
133. secretion(s)
134. forhead
138. intercostal
139. proximal
140. threshold(s)
141.anti-inflammatory
142. gall
143. kirlowii
144. excretion
145.inferior
146. gypsum
147. physiology
148. tonic(s)
149. pilosulae
150. ankle

151. nocturnal
152. eczema
153. seminal
154. carthami
155. abscess
156. moisten(s/ing)
157. p53
158. premature
159. penetrate(s)
160. scrophulariae
161. ziziphi
162. polygoni
163. coicis
164. predominant
165. biochemical
166. matrix
167. ding
168. extinguish(es)
169. gastric
170. recurrence
171. codonopsis
172. qualitative
173. oxidative
174. recens
175. transverse
176. empirical
177. prone
178. wristbands
179. tremor(s)
180. aggravate(d)
181. anus
182. diagnose(s/d)
183. magnoliae
184. analgesia
185. neurological
186. platelet
187. sensory
188. grief
189. systemic
190. abnormalities
191. endometriosis
192. trauma
193. jasminoidis
194. caspase
195. implantation
196. buffer
197. cellular
198. colon
199. enrich(es)
200. inhibitory



Specialized vocabulary across languages: The case of traditional Chinese medicine

209

201. rheumatoid
202. concealment
203. endothelial
204. ningpoensis
205. pediatric
206. preproductive
207. hippocampus
208. hypochondrium
209. osteoarthritis
210. persicae
211. pus
212. regurgitation
213. stabbing
214. haemorrhoids
215. occipital
216. overflowing
217. synthesis
218. focal
219. gums
220. influenza
221. jujubae
222. progestrone
223. vivo
224. axilla
225. biomedical
226. carmichaeli
227. sprain
228. grind
229. pancreatic
230. ping
231. mellitus
232. RNA
233. sneezing
234. achyranthis
235. coefficient
236. originate(s)
237. undigested
238. amomi
239. carcinoma
240. hypertensive
241. moist
242. neuropathy
243. vulgaris
244. arterial
245. armeniacae
246. bidentatae
247. blot
248. carotid
249. cyrus

250. latent
251. Bcl2
252. perimenstrual
253. demographic
254. fibroids
255. interval(s)
256. knotted
257. luteal
258. pituitary
259. tinctorii
260. astragalus
261. descent
262. ode
263. ovary(ies)
264. rigidity
265. tenuifoliae
266. tingling
267. diminished
268. immaturus
269. thready
270. transcription
271. unilateral
272. convulsions
273. thigh
274. Ccl4
275. copious
276. decoct(ed)
277. eligible
278. eucommiae
279. minimal
280. contraindicated
281. harmony
282. hyperactivity
283. invade(s/d)
284. prostatitis
285. cervi
286. postoperative
287. perparata
288. sedate
289. enzyme(s)
290. induction
291. lassitude
292. mitochondrial
293. spinosae
294. cirrhosis
295. depletion
296.differentiate(d/ing)
297. endogenous
298. rash(es)

299. systolic
300. colic
301. dribbling
302. inhibitor(s)
303. coptis
304. distending
305. invigorating
306. scapula
307. jobi
308. precursor(s)
309. coma
310. irritable
311. laser
312. migraine
313. pancreas
314. pensiveness
315. pores
316. aggregation
317. girdle
318. intermittent
319. rehabilitation
320. sciatica
321. consolidate
322. lachryma
323. pelvic
324. vertebra€
325. canthus
326. cyperi
327. hypogastric
328. hypoglycemic
329. mmHg
330. opioid
331. tablet(s)
332. collagen
333. plantaginis
334. rotation
335. soggy
336. terminal
337. ventricular
338. anatomical
339. aspheloidis
340. gel
341. radial
342. modalities
343. muscular
344. ostreae
345. pneumonia
346. upregulated
347. autonomic

348. emaciation
349. engender(s)
350. thermal
351. adjacent
352. atherosclerosis
353. bulbus
354. latency
355. platycoid
356. vaccine
357. capsule(s)
358. endometrial
359. gynaecological
360. mast
361. oriental
362. puerariae
363.antihypertensive
364. multiflori
365. obese
366. delirium
367. diffuse(ing)
368. leucorrhoea
369. mediators
370. necrosis
371. nephropathy
372. polygalae
373. scrofula
374. surgical
375. ting
376. ulmoidis
377. amplitude
378. crude
379. exertion
380. fragrant
381. horizontal
382. japonicae
383. puncture
384. cleft
385. epithelial
386. fibrosum
387. fluoxetine
388. hippocampal
389. notoginseng
390. placenta
391. simulation
392. tolerance
393. foul
394. haemorrhage
395. pernicious



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APPENDIX F

Sub-list 2 of the TCM Word List at Level 3

1. geng 18. ququan 35. zhigou 52. qiang
2. bei 19. geshu 36. zhe 53. zulinqi
3. xuehai 20. xinshu 37. qigong 54. lue
4. waiguan 21. suo 38. zha 55. jianyu
5. mingmen 22. weizhong 39. tianshu 56. shenting
6. deqi 23. gongsun 40. jue 57. tongli
7. bian 24. xingjian 41. duan 58. huantiao
8. shenmen 25. ganshu 42. jiu 59. pangguangshu
9. yue 26. sanjiaoshu 43. taiyang 60. shuidao
10. shou 27. taichi 44. zong 61. neiting
11. sanjiao 28. shenmai 45. qimen 62. huan
12. shuifen 29. weishu 46. taiyuan 63. jiuwei
13. suan 30. fengfu 47. pian 64. tiao
14. dazhui 31. kunlun 48. renzhong 65. danggui
15. lun 32. shanzhong 49. taibai 66. shangjuxu
16. fuliu 33. rong 50. yangming 67. rangu
17. houxi 34. daling 51. chize



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APPENDIX G

Sub-list 3 of the TCM Word List at Level 1

1. constitute 26. sciences 51. generates 76. immunity
2. redder 27. varying 52. tidal 77. positively
3. urgency 28. climatic 53. virtue 78. preventative
4. coping 29. dreaming 54. externally 79. altered
5. molecules 30. ineffective 55. fats 80. construct
6. concentrated 31. interiorly 56. radiates 81. energizer
7. connective 32.recommendations 57. heating 82. predictive
8. diseased 33. separates 58. progressive 83. urgent
9. extending 34. bodily 59. theoretical 84. advantages
10. lumps 35. constituents 60. untreated 85. arising
11. professionals 36. derive 61. antidepressant 86. completion
12. balancing 37. determining 62. evidenced 87. dominant
13. cupping 38. relies 63. gentle 88. enhancing
14. posttreatment 39. travels 64. indicative 89. episodes
15. translate(d) 40. applying 65. lacking 90. implications
16. nonspecific 41. binds 66. removal 91. radicals
17. probability 42. gradual 67. supportive 92. shivering
18. runny 43. reddish 68. swallowing 93. intensive
19. assessments 44. structural 69. complaint 94. participating
20. facilitate 45. conducting 70. formulated 95. poststroke
21. monitored 46. inspection 71. intention 96. prospective
22. mutually 47. transmitted 72. consumed 97. selecting
23. phenomenon 48. variability 73. developmental 98. correlated
24. settles 49. composition 74. continuously 99. undergoing
25. rabbit 50. extending 75. clinicians 100. dries
101. migration 120. screened 139. contracted 158. accurately
102. relaxes 121. applies 140. extremity 159. expenditure
103. rooted 122. output 141. implemented 160. liquids
104. underwent 123. rebelling 142. improper 161. referral
105. comprised 124. separating 143. interfere 162. segment
106. fainting 125. bleed 144. standardization 163. clustering
107. grouping 126. excessively 145. encountered 164. connectivity
108. gentlemen 127. resistant 146. gathers 165. essentials
109. institutional 128. absorption 147. localized 166. rootless
110. interact 129. colds 148. reproduction 167. yielded
111. anticancer 130. demonstrates 149. resides 168. emphasised
112. barriers 131. exception 150. sampling 169. institutes
113. brightens 132. restricted 151. uncontrolled 170. interference
114. fibers 133. grouped 152. worsening 171. normalized
115. immature 134. mindfulness 153. clarify 172. plots
116. injuring 135. outward 154. correction 173. powered
117. maturation 136. smelling 155. dislike
118. references 137. associations 156. drainage
119. salty 138. ceaseless 157. piglet



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212

APPENDIX H

Sub-list 3 of the TCM Word List at Level 2

1. ultrasound
2. vein
3. vitality
4. zedoary
5. borborygmus(i)
6. grandiflori
7. indirectly
8. lateralis
9. linear
10. cervix
11. formalin
12. ginsenoside
13. polygonati
14. rhodiola
15. cones
16. dipsaci
17. kinase
18. orientalis
19. perillae
20. refined
21. sigma
22. cuscutae
23. ejaculation
24. hiccup(s)
25. intellect
26. reperfusion
27. expectoration
28. itchy
29. nodules
30. pertain(s/ing)
31. respiration
32. sallow
33. temporal
34. urticaria
35. alpha
36. Bax
37. conjunction
38. dyspnea
39. erection
40. etiology
41. graminei
42. malleolus
43. pathophysiology
44. spatholobi
45. congenital
46. corydalis
47. dilution
48. gland(s)
49. holistic
50. retinopathy

51. rotundi
52. slimy
53. validated
54. blazing
55. cortical
56. cystitis
57. dispel(s)
58. ephedra
59. fossa
60. frutescentis
61. macrophages
62. outpatient
63. panacis
64. vitamin
65. diastolic
66. guan
67. hypothalamus
68. rectum
69. appendix
70. calcium
71. distress
72. exteriorly
73. inducing
74. lacrimation
75. lucidi
76. potent
77. salvia
78. somnolence
79. albus
80. ethanol
81. follicle(s)
82. phellodendron
83. pinellia
84. prostatic
85. rib
86. scraping
87. bupleurum
88. dioscorea
89. hypogastrium
90. rubrus
91. stagnate(s)
92. aggravate
93. anemarrhena
94. clots
95. downregulated
96. gentiana
97. optimal
98. alternating
99. disinhibit
100. hypochondriac

101. lethargy
102. magnolia
103. polydipsia
104. amelioration
105. endocrine
106. fallopian
107. forsythiae
108. metabolites
109. penetration
110. seizures
111. static
112. zizyphi
113. adjunctive
114. algorithm
115. apoptotic
116. bowels
117. cannabis
118. conquitae
119. fetal
120. flush
121. junction
122. menopause
123.pneumothorax
124. sclerosis
125. thoracic
126. bland
127. bronchitis
128. flaccidity
129. flaring
130. goitre
131. malignant
132. resentment
133. umbilical
134. vagina
135. airway
136. cramps
137. dysentery
138. ion
139. licorice
140. mucosa
141. neural
142. rubra
143.transplantation
144. vertex
145. alternation
146.cerebrovascular
147. fortify(ies)
148.proinflammatory
149. stifling
150. validation

151. aconite
152. aphasia
153. codonopsitis
154. colitis
155. fracture
156. incubation
157. pectoris
158. rectify
159. spinous
160. stimuli
161. acoustic
162. autophagy
163. chrysanthemi
164. dysenteric
165. expulsion
166.interrogation
167. lonicerae
168. regimen
169. turmoil
170. basel
171. cyathulae
172. differential
173. ephedrae
174. gastritis
175. identical
176. murky
177. proteinuria
178. susceptible
179. visceral
180. dependence
181. dissolved
182. draconis
183. enlarged
184. ingestion
185. nodes
186. relapse
187. sepsis
188. benign
189. diuresis
190. dopamine
191. rectal
192. traumatic
193. urethra
194. artemisiae
195. cohort
196. follicular
197. funnel
198. hyperplasia
199. myopia
200. phosphate



Specialized vocabulary across languages: The case of traditional Chinese medicine

213

201. sui
202. ulceration
203. viability
204. absent
205. actin
206.neuroprotective
207. peritoneal
208. saussureae
209. skeletal
210. subjected
211. acrid
212. cholinergic
213. eruptions
214. menses
215. perineum
216. polyuria
217. rigorous
218. sequelae
219. thyriod
220. compliance
221. contrary
222. crataegi
223. dermatomes
224. frankincense
225. malar
226. pancreatitis
227. postpartum
228. sandalwood
229. artemisia
230. ascites
231. bambusae
232. centrifuged
233. cocaine
234. congealed
235. fritillariae
236. guinea
237. insulting
238. mitochondria
239. p38
240. testicles
241. augument(ed)
242. denotes
243. duct
244. gentianae
245. ledebouriellae
246. logistic
247. menthae
248. phosphorylation
249. prevalent
250. suspensae
251. aetiological
252. anemia
253. anesthetized
254. bilaterally
255. colorectal

256. flabby
257. indirect
258. morifolii
259. stubborn
260. treatise
261. autoimmune
262. elucidated
263. glehniae
264. hemoglobin
265. histamine
266. noninvasive
267. occiput
268. palpable
269. prenatal
270. quantified
271. ascent
272. astringe
273. corpus
274. distilled
275. impair(s)
276. ovarian
277. Pon2
278. sacrum
279. subcutaneous
280. throbbing
281. tuberculosis
282. clonic
283. dysmenorrhoea
284. eligibility
285. ginkgo
286. inhalation
287. lignum
288. nelumbinis
289. opisthotonos
290. overweight
291. sterile
292. viscera
293. adjuvant
294. affinity
295. ancestral
296.chromatography
297. dysmenorrhea
298. elicited
299. interleukin
300. location
301. lobe
302. metformin
303. mucous
304. otitis
305. polymerase
306. postnatal
307. anatomy
308. carbohydrates
309. cimicifugae
310. electrophoresis

311. extracellular
312. genitalia
313. histone
314. littoralis
315. measles
316. nitrogen
317. nocturia
318. psoriatic
319. simulated
320. suppressed(ed)
321. afferent
322. biomedicine
323. fibroblasts
324. intraperitoneal
325. modulation
326. obstructive
327. oxalate
328. regent(s)
329. vexation
330. follicle(s)
331. harmonious
332. morbidity
333. morphine
334. resonance
335. retrieved
336. sacral
337. uncariae
338. verified
339. adherence
340. attenuated
341. cartilage
342. crease
343. degeneration
344. ectopic
345. harmonized
346. impair(s)
347. infantile
348. multiflorum
349. pediatrics
350. prominence
351.pseudostellariae
352. sinusitis
353. anesthesia
354. cuscatae
355. exert
356. interstitial
357. popliteal
358. purulent
359. serotonin
360. suppression
361. susceptibility
362. testudinis
363. apparatus
364. asthmatic
365. constriction

366. cumulative
367. infract
368. inherent
369. ligustri
370. lipoprotein
371. metastasis
372. microarray
373. morindae
374. multivariate
375.pharmacotherapy
376. podocyte
377. polarity
378. pubic
379. utilization
380. X-ray
381. asari
382. clonic
383. comparative
384. erectile
385. glycyrrhiza
386. microscope
387. muzziness
388. nucleus
389. pacify
390. usage
391. antiarrhythmic
392. antibiotic
393. Ca1
394. cytosolic
395. electro
396. ligand
397. massa
398. plantago
399. pollen
400. purging
401. soles
402. soothe
403. transient
404. creatinine
405. dorsal
406. macrocephala
407. oxide
408. sedation
409. spatial
410. twitching
411. amino
412. appendicitis
413. bloating
414. bouts
415. consolidation
416. gradient
417. immunoistochemistry
418. intercourse
419. kaempferol
420. notopterygii



Cailing Lu, Averil Coxhead

214

421. nutrients 423. sesloidis 425. stuffiness
422. parching 424. sphere 426. supraclavicular



Specialized vocabulary across languages: The case of traditional Chinese medicine

215

APPENDIX I

Sub-list 3 of the TCM Word List at Level 3

1. fuling 22. chengshan 43. touwei 64. lidui
2. shanghuo 23. ciliao 44. weiyang 65. qiwei
3. zhangmen 24. laogong 45. yanhusuo 66. renying
4. zhongfu 25. qiuxu 46. yinbai 67. shenque
5. liang 26. shousanli 47. tianzhu 68. shenzhu
6. mang 27. yingu 48. xiaxi 69. jinmen
7. fengmen 28. dadun 49. yintang 70. shangwan
8. chuanxiong 29. jianjing 50. changqiang 71. tui
9. jiexi 30. yangxi 51. tou 72. yingxiang
10. dachangshu 31. guo 52. siman 73. daheng
11. yongquan 32. huai 53. tianjing 74. dashu
12. shangxing 33. shaoyang 54. miao 75. lao
13. wangu 34. tiantu 55. shimen 76. yangfu
14. dao 35. guizhi 56. zhengs 77. shaoze
15. guasha 36. jingming 57. guanchong 78. ao
16. ligou 37. bufei 58. shangyang 79. tuina
17. qichong 38. xiajuxu 59. shaoshang 80. ahshi
18. xuanzhong 39. yanggu 60. feiyang 81. jueyinshu
19. zhongzhu 40. jianshi 61. sanjian 82. shaohai
20. shangqiu 41. zuo 62. fengshi 83. yamen
21. juque 42. dazhong 63. huiyin



Cailing Lu, Averil Coxhead

216

APPENDIX J

The Common Core TCM List (arranged by alphabet)

Note. This list includes shared headwords between Hsu’s (2018) and the present study.

1 abdomen 2 abnormal 3 abscess
4 absent 5 acid 6 acrid
7 activate 8 acupuncture 9 acute
10 adverse 11 affinity 12 aggravate
13 alleviate 14 amenorrhoea 15 analgesia
16 anatomy 17 angina 18 ankle
19 anterior 20 antibiotic 21 anus
22 appendix 23 appetite 24 artery
25 arthritis 26 ascend 27 ascend
28 asthma 29 atrophy 30 augment
31 beneficial 32 bilateral 33 bile
34 bladder 35 bland 36 bowel
37 bronchitis 38 calcium 39 cardiac
40 cartilage 41 caution 42 cavity
43 cerebral 44 cervix 45 chronic
46 cleft 47 colic 48 coma
49 comparative 50 complexion 51 concomitant
52 congenital 53 conjunction 54 consolidate
55 contraction 56 cord 57 coronary
58 cortex 59 decoct 60 deficiency
61 delirium 62 dementia 63 diabetes
64 diagnosis 65 diameter 66 diaphragm
67 diarrhoea 68 differential 69 differentiate
70 diffuse 71 discomfort 72 disharmony
73 dispel 74 disperse 75 distal
76 distress 77 diuresis 78 dorsal
79 dorsum 80 duct 81 dull
82 duration 83 dynamic 84 dysentery
85 dysfunction 86 dyspnea 87 eczema
88 efficacy 89 elbow 90 emperor
91 endocrine 92 endogenous 93 enuresis
94 enzyme 95 epigastric 96 epilepsy
97 epistaxis 98 essence 99 ethanol
100 etiology 101 exert 102 exogenous
103 expel 104 exterior 105 extinguish
106 facial 107 fang 108 fatigue
109 febrile 110 fetal 111 fever
112 fluid 113 flush 114 fossa
115 foul 116 fracture 117 gallbladder
118 gastrointestinal 119 gel 120 genital
121 ginkgo 122 ginseng 123 gland
124 glucose 125 grind 126 haemorrhage
127 hemiplegia 128 hepatic 129 hepatitis
130 herb 131 hiccup 132 holistic
133 horizontal 134 hormone 135 hypertension
136 impair 137 impotence 138 induce
139 infantile 140 inferior 141 influenza
142 inhibit 143 insomnia 144 intake



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217

145 intermittent 146 interval 147 intestine
148 invade 149 invigorate 150 jaundice
151 junction 152 kidney 153 lassitude
154 lateral 155 lesion 156 limb
157 liver 158 lobe 159 lumbar
160 lung 161 malaria 162 malleolus
163 marrow 164 massage 165 medial
166 medication 167 membrane 168 menopause
169 meridian 170 metabolism 171 metastasis
172 midline 173 migraine 174 minimal
175 moist 176 mucus 177 muscular
178 nasal 179 nausea 180 necrosis
181 needle 182 nourish 183 obese
184 oblique 185 obstruct 186 occipital
187 oedema 188 onset 189 optimal
190 orifice 191 originate 192 ovary
193 pancreas 194 paralysis 195 pathogenic
196 pathology 197 penetrate 198 pericardium
199 perpendicular 200 pertain 201 pharmaceutical
202 phlegm 203 physician 204 physiological
205 pill 206 placebo 207 pneumonia
208 posterior 209 potent 210 predominant
211 premature 212 prenatal 213 prescribe
214 prescription 215 prevalent 216 prognosis
217 prolapse 218 prone 219 prostate
220 proximal 221 pulmonary 222 pulse
223 puncture 224 pungent 225 purulent
226 pus 227 qualitative 228 radial
229 rash 230 relapse 231 renal
232 reproductive 233 respiration 234 retention
235 rheumatoid 236 rhinitis 237 rib
238 sacral 239 saliva 240 salvia
241 sclerosis 242 scrofula 243 sedate
244 sensation 245 sensory 246 serum
247 sinew 248 slippery 249 soothe
250 sour 251 spasm 252 spine
253 spleen 254 spontaneous 255 sprain
256 sputum 257 stagnate 258 stasis
259 static 260 sterile 261 sticky
262 stool 263 subcutaneous 264 subjective
265 superficial 266 suppress 267 surgical
268 susceptible 269 syndrome 270 synthesis
271 systemic 272 tablet 273 temporal
274 tendon 275 therapeutic 276 thigh
277 thoracic 278 threshold 279 tinnitus
280 tolerance 281 tong 282 tonic
283 toxic 284 toxin 285 tract
286 transverse 287 trauma 288 tuberculosis
289 turbid 290 ulcer 291 urethra
292 urine 293 urticaria 294 uterine
295 uterus 296 vagina 297 vascular
298 vein 299 vertebra 300 vertex
301 vertigo 302 visceral 303 vitality
304 vitamin 305 vitro 306 wan
307 wen 308 wrist 309 yin