2014 Fiscal Year Research-status Report
From Corpus to Course: Providing Learners of Medical English with the Language they Really Need
| Project/Area Number |
25370630
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| Research Institution | Hiroshima University |
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Principal Investigator |
FRASER Simon 広島大学, 外国語教育研究センター, 准教授 (10403510)
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| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
達川 奎三 広島大学, 外国語教育研究センター, 教授 (00290528)
DAVIES Walter 広島大学, 外国語教育研究センター, 准教授 (30448261)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2013-04-01 – 2016-03-31
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| Keywords | Corpus / Medical English / Word lists / Pedagogic materials / Data driven learning |
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
The ultimate aim of this research is to produce corpora, word lists and pedagogic materials for students and researchers in a university medical faculty. In the second year of the project, we have worked on refining the anatomy corpus built using “Gray's Anatomy for Students", created new anatomy word lists, and written and trialled completely new materials which integrate anatomy with areas of medical specialization, common diseases, and medical conditions.
A corpus based on “Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine” has now been completed, and is currently being prepared for analysis. At the same time, work has begun on building a corpus of medical research articles, starting with neurosurgical articles from leading journals in the field. We are also investigating the ways in which corpus analysis tools can be used by medical practitioners in order to provide them with the language data they need to give presentations and publish in their own specific fields.
We have presented our findings both domestically and at an international conference, and received further useful feedback from corpus experts and classroom practitioners. We have also published our findings.
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| Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
2: Research has progressed on the whole more than it was originally planned.
Reason
Construction of the corpus based on “Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine” has been slightly slower than expected, due to the size and complexity of the text, but it is producing useful insights on internal medical words that complement the anatomy words. Very good progress has been made with the development and improvement of the medical materials. We have also managed to present three times, had our work published twice, and had two articles accepted for future publication in international journals.
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| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
The “Harrison's” corpus will be further analysed. The research article-based corpus will be expanded and analysed, and comparisons made with the textbook-based corpora. The existing pedagogic units of material will be extensively evaluated, allowing for further development and refinement of the course-specific word list. Our plan is to work from the specific to the general: The specific word list will be reviewed and edited, in conjunction with analysis of the three corpora, enabling us to compile a general word list for medical undergraduates. Our findings will be presented internationally and published. We are also going to further explore the possibilities for students and practitioners to develop their own corpus-building skills.
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| Causes of Carryover |
There is budget remaining from the previous year because Walter Davies did not use his allocated travel allowance last year. Instead, he is planning to attend two international conferences in 2015.
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| Expenditure Plan for Carryover Budget |
Simon Fraser and Walter Davies are presenting at the CAES Conference in Hong Kong in June, and we are all planning to attend the BAAL Conference in the UK in September. Also, budget is required for additional medical reference books and materials necessary for our corpus analyses and medical course development.
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