VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY
COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES
DEPARTMENT OF GRADUATE STUDIES

NGUYN TH VÂN HNH

LEXICAL AND MORPHOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF
MEDICO-PHARMACEUTICAL TEXTS AND PEDAGOGICAL
IMPLICATIONS

(NHNG C IM V MT T VNG VÀ HÌNH THÁI HC
CA CÁC VN BN Y-DC VÀ NG DNG
TRONG GING DY)

M.A. Combined Programme Thesis

Field: English linguistics
Code: 602215

HANOI, APRIL 2008

i

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP
This work contains no material which has been accepted for the award of any other
degree in any university or other tertiary institution and, to the best of my knowledge and
belief, contains no material previously published or written by other person, except where
due to references have been made in the text.

Hanoi, April 2008
Nguyen Thi Van Hanh
ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like first and foremost to express my sincere and deep gratitude to my supervisor,
Dr. Kieu Thi Thu Huong, for her deliberate guidance and invaluable critical feedback and

Concordance Program (Reed, 1997-2008). The results show that the size and the
coverage of technical vocabulary are relevant as compared to the previous results of
similar studies, strongly suggesting that the coursebook materials are manageable for
students. The morphological analysis presents the frequency, origin, formation, meanings
and functions of the most frequently used affixes in the corpus, revealing that there is a
high frequency of words in the corpus from technical vocabulary which share the same
origin and formation by means of their affixes. The morphological characteristics are,
therefore, important in helping students to acquire technical vocabulary.
The results brought about by the lexical and morphological analyses in this study suggest
various implications for course design, materials evaluation, and materials development,
as well as for teaching, learning, and testing ESP at HUP in a narrow focus and in EFL
teaching and learning in a wider context. The tools and methods employed in this study
are also intended to assist teachers and researchers in the field of ESP to deal with
technical vocabulary.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements ii
Abstract iii
PART ONE: INTRODUCTION 1
1. Rationale 1
2. Aims of the study 2
3. Research questions 2
4. Research methods 2
5. Scope of the study 4
6. Significance of the study 4
7. Structure of the thesis 5
PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT 6
CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 6

2.1.2. The selection of texts 34
2.1.3. Major methods for data analysis 35
2.1.4. Major tools for data analysis 35
2.1.5. The inter-rater reliability check 37
2.1.5.1. Introduction of the inter-rater reliability check 37
2.1.5.2. The results of the inter-rater reliability check 41
2.2. Lexical features of the corpus of texts at HUP 42
2.2.1. Initial description and discussion of the data 43
2.2.1.1. General statistics of the corpus 43
2.2.1.2. Processing of the data against the first 2,000 most frequent words in GSL 45
2.2.1.3. Processing of the data against the AWL 47
2.2.1.4. Processing of the data from word list 4 48
2.2.2. In-depth description and discussion of technical vocabulary 49
2.2.2.1. The size of technical vocabulary in the ESP texts 49
2.2.2.2. The importance of technical vocabulary in the ESP texts 51
CHAPTER 3:MORPHOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF
MEDICO-PHARMACEUTICAL TEXTS AT HANOI UNIVERSITY
OF PHARMACY 55
3.1. Methodology 55
3.2. Discussion of inflectional suffixes in the corpus 56
3.2.1. Suffix -ed 56
3.2.2. Suffix -ing 58
3.3. Discussion of derivational affixation in the corpus 60
vi

3.3.1. Suffix –tion 61
3.3.2. Suffix –al 62
3.3.3. Suffix –ic, -ical and -ous 63
3.3.4. Suffix -ine, -ium and -ia 64
PART THREE: CONCLUSION 68

Table 2. Germanic and non-Germanic derivation 21
Table 3. Association patterns in language use 24
Table 4. Percentage of each vocabulary level in academic language courses 27
Table 5. Effectiveness of the four ways of identifying technical terms 30
Table 6. Sample classification in the inter-rater reliability check 39
Table 7. Marked words for the inter-rater reliability check 40
Table 8. Inter-rater reliability accuracy score calculated by the number of words
assigned to four steps by rater 1 and by the researcher 41
Table 9. Inter-rater reliability accuracy score calculated by the number of words
assigned to four steps by the rater 2 and by the researcher 42
Table 10. Coverage of texts by the various levels of vocabulary types and tokens by
RANGE program 43
Table 11. Ratio between number of input files and number of types found 44
Table 12. Word classes vs. word list 1 45
Table 13. The most frequent words vs. word list 1 46
Table 14. The most frequent words vs. word list 2 47
Table 15. The most frequent words vs. word list 3 48
Table 16. The most frequent words vs. word list 4 49
Table 17. Coverage of levels of vocabulary types in the corpus of ESP texts 50
Table 18. Coverage of levels of vocabulary frequency in the corpus of ESP texts 52
Table 19. A sample of raw data for developing a glossary of technical words 53
Table 20. A sample of raw data for developing a glossary from low frequency
words 54
Table 21. Past participles and their frequency of occurrences 57
Table 22. Present participle/gerund and their frequency of occurrences 59
Table 23. The most common suffixes in the corpus 61
Table 24. Words with suffix –ation and their frequency 62
Table 23. Words with suffix –al and their frequency 63
Table 25. Words with suffix –ic and their frequency 64
Table 26. Summary of the most frequently met suffixes 67

English for Pharmacy was first introduced to pharmacy students at Hanoi University of
Pharmacy (HUP) during the 1970s. The course has so far been a remarkable contribution
to the university curriculum. Nevertheless, there are some disadvantages posed for the
course. English for Pharmacy is currently taught for one semester, which is equal to 45
contact hours. The limited time allotment does not allow the syllabus to cover
substantially the subject-matter content. Furthermore, according to the recent survey
carried out by the English Department at HUP, 47% of students at HUP thought the ESP
course was difficult for them, and the same number of students wanted a longer time
allotment for the course. This is explained by the fact that many students feel they do not
have time to get acquainted with and practice skills and sub-skills while participating in
the course.
As a matter of fact, the major tasks throughout the course are concerned with reading
comprehension. Besides, other activities such as speaking/presentation or writing are
included, but not dominant. The lessons in class are only able to provide them with the
rough comprehension of the texts in which the content is pharmacy-oriented, or those in
which the content is both pharmacy-oriented and medicine-oriented (hereinafter called
medico-pharmaceutical texts). It is notable that the students have undertaken few courses
on professional subjects in their curriculum, which indicates that their background
knowledge of their major is scattered and insufficient. Accordingly, the texts used during
the ESP course here are only at a moderate level of difficulty, regarding specialist
knowledge, so that students can thoroughly understand them without previous specialist
background. Despite this, they cannot commit themselves to understand the texts
thoroughly, and therefore they do not acquire enough knowledge to perform the
comprehension tasks. Although they are instructed to deal with them in a basic way, they
still find it a struggle to comprehend the linguistic characteristics of the texts. Therefore,
it is due to these difficulties and the learning needs of the students that a more thorough
analysis is required of the English texts they study in class.
2

A literature search revealed that research into linguistic characteristics, especially on

approach to ESP text analysis is a corpus-based approach, particularly in corpus
linguistics. This approach, with both statistical and linguistic methods, and both
automatic and interactive techniques, produces useful information on the size, the
importance and other characteristics of technical vocabulary in the corpus, and other
applicable results such as input materials for course design and revision, and glossary and
vocabulary lists according to specific goals set for each type of list for the course.
Seeing these advantages of a corpus-based approach to studying the pilot corpus of ESP
texts used at HUP, the researcher will carry out the study based on the methods of
corpus-based text analysis. There are various tools, some of which are computer-based,
used in corpus linguistics. In particular, the analysis of lexical features investigated
vocabulary of the corpus of the texts by identifying 4 types of vocabulary, and the
prevalent tool for carrying out this analysis is the the RANGE and FREQUENCY
program (hereinafter called RANGE) developed by Nation (2006). The methods that
Chung and Nation (2003) applied to their own study on recognising and analysing
technical vocabulary played an important role in the lexical analysis. At morphological
levels, derivational and inflected affixes which appear in the corpus of the texts are
subjected to analysis using mainly the Simple Concordance Program (Reed, 1997-2008).
However, it is anticipated that there are also some problematic features in the data in the
light of the framework followed, as the lexico-morphological features do have
exceptions. At this point, some modifications will be applied to the corpus. The validity
of the linguistic analysis will be supported by observation and informal interviews with
both teachers and students at HUP; the latter, however, are secondary sources of
information.
Before reporting on the analysis, there are some umbrella terms that require definition,
such as lexicon, morphology, lexeme, morpheme, English for Specific Purposes, text
analysis, corpus linguistics, corpus-based approach and other sub-concepts. The
conceptualisation of the above key terms is all based on publications put forward by, for
example, Biber et al. (1998), Biber et al. (1999), Celce – Murcia and Larsen – Freeman
(1983); Carstairs-McCarthy (2002); Bauer (1983); Hutchinson and Waters (1987),
Chung and Nation (2004), and Lankamp (1988).


7. Structure of the thesis
The study is divided into three parts: Introduction, Development and Conclusion. Part
One - Introduction - presents the rationale, the aims, the research questions, the
applicable methods, the scope, the significance and the structure of the study. Part Two -
Development, which is the main part of the study, consists of three chapters. Chapter 1
provides a theoretical background for the research development. This chapter gives a
description of the published related materials concerning such basic concepts in lexicon
and morphology as text analysis, corpus linguistics, corpus-based approach and ESP.
Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 respectively give a description of lexical and morphological
features of medico-pharmaceutical texts used in teaching ESP at HUP. In these two
chapters, lexical and morphological features of the target corpus of the texts are analysed
employing a corpus-based approach using the methods and tools mentioned in the first
section of each chapter. Part Three - Conclusion - summarises the major findings from
this study and suggests implications for course design, materials development, teaching,
learning and testing. This part also proposes some suggestions for further research.

6

PART TWO
DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
An understanding and analyses of lexical and morphological characteristics of the
selected corpus of medico-pharmaceutical texts require various concepts and theoretical
background in the field of lexicology, morphology, text analysis, corpus linguistics and
English for medicine and pharmacy. This chapter will deal with the basic concepts and
ideas to set the theoretical background for the analyses which will be carried out later in
this study.

listed in dictionaries, and
2. in that they are the building-blocks out of which phrases and sentences
are formed”.
(Carstairs-McCarthy, 2002:5)
A simple description of characteristics of words is presneted in Biber et al. (1999:51).
According to them, words, phonologically, may be preceded and followed by a pause;
orthographically there are spaces of punctuation marks; syntactically, they may be used
alone as a single utterance; and semantically, words can obtain one or more meanings in
a dictionary.
Another term frequently used in lexicology is lexeme. Whereas words are understood as
orthographic words, which are word forms separated by spaces in written texts and the
corresponding forms in speech as discussed above, lexemes are the smallest units of a
lexicon, but may also occur in the form of a phrase, a compound word, or in special
combinations. Biber et al. define lexeme as “a group of word forms that share the same
basic meaning and belong to the same word class” (Biber et al., 1999:54). A lexeme may
be abstract, but it can be simplified by saying a lexeme allows different inflections to
affix to it to make words. For example, speak is a lexeme, meanwhile speaks and
speaking are inflected forms of speak. The dictionary information on a lexeme as a
dictionary entry generally includes its pronunciation, part of speech, inflected forms, and
various meanings, generally grouped according to its senses and sub-senses.
Every lexeme or lexical item in the language must be entered in the lexicon (which is a
comprehensive list of all words and productive derivational affixes in the language) and
8

represented on a number of levels, which include at least the following, according to
Celce – Murcia and Larsen – Freeman (1983:49):
1. spelling (orthography)
2. phonetic representation
3. syntactic features and restrictions
4. semantic features and restrictions

openness open closed
number large small
stress strong weak
Table 1. Typical differences between lexical words and function words
(Biber et al., 1999:55)

- Inserts: are newly recognised. They do not form an integral part of a syntactic
structure, inserted freely into the text. E.g.: hm, yeah, bye
Lexical words are predominant in the news text, but the distribution of lexical words is
more equal in a conversational passage, which also includes a fair number of inserts.
Inserts do not usually appear in academic prose (Biber et al., 1999: 61).
1.1.1.3. Closed system versus open classes
Both Biber et al. (1999) and Celce – Murcia and Larsen – Freeman (1983) provide a
clear description of closed system and open classes. Words, according to them, are
divided into either of these two classes:
- Closed systems: contain a limited number of members, and new members are not
easily added. These are mainly function words.
- Open classes: membership is indefinite and unlimited. These are generally lexical
words.
Every lexical item from either closed systems or open classes belongs to a part of speech.
They are nouns, auxiliary verbs, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, determiners, intensifiers, or
10

prepositions. The major parts of speech (nouns, verbs, adverbs and adjectives) constitute
open lexical categories. The other parts of speech (e.g., determiners, intensifiers,
prepositions, and auxiliary verbs) constitute closed lexical categories, since they contain
far fewer items than the open ones and they do not readily add new items or discard old
ones (Celce – Murcia and Larsen – Freeman, 1983:49).
Biber et al. (1999:56) also state that the size of function words in closed categories does
not increase very quickly, meanwhile new lexical words in open categories may be

(1) “easy, clear” (plain English)
(2) “undecorated” (plain white shirt)
(3) “not good-looking” (plain Jane)
(Finegan, 2000:195)
Apresjan (1974:16) classifies polysemy into two types:
(a) metaphor: senses are related by analogy
E.g.: The word table has different meanings related to each other:
(1) a thin flat piece of stone/metal/wood with four legs
(2) part of a machine tool on which work is operated
(3) a level area, a plateau
(4) the people seated at a table
(5) the food on the table
(Vo Dai Quang, 2003:26)
(b) metonymy: senses related by connectedness. The second meaning is formed on the
basis of the first, and the third is based on the second and so on.
E.g.: “Rabbit” has polysemic senses as “the animal” and “the meat of that animal”; the
meaning of the latter is based on that of the former.
Polysemy exists only in written language, not in speech. A word can only have one
meaning in speech. Therefore in reading texts, polysemy is a common phenomenon and
it causes difficulty for non-native readers.
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Homonymy
“Words are homonymic when they have the same written or spoken form but different
senses” (Finegan, 2000:196). They are not connected semantically, for instance, “punch
1” means “blow with a fist” while “punch 2” means “a drink”. There are two types of
homonymy according to either word sound form or word meaning. There are several sub-
types of homonymy; however, because of the nature of the written language that this
study is dealing with, some sub-types of homonymy can be summarised as follows (Vo
Dai Quang, 2003):

a hill or a mountain”. Both words refer to the lowest part, which suggests they have
commonality and therefore are senses of a word. The same polysemic word, moreover,
may share the same synonyms and antonyms, however, this type of word is limited in
number, i.e., not all words have synonyms and/or antonyms. Let us take a look at this
example:

Word Sense Synonym Antonym
easy, clear
plain simple complex
undecorated
stretch of water
sound ?? ??
noise

Figure 1. Antonymy and synonymy for polysemic and homonymic words
(Finegan, 2000:196)
Homonymy and polysemy are two remarkable phenomena not only in General English
(GE), but also in ESP, which suggests that they are worth analysing for ESP texts, where
a large number of technical words share a commonality in orthography and/or sense. This
account anticipates analysis later in this study when the lexical features of the ESP texts
are studied.
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1.1.3. Word types, word tokens and lemmas
In a sentence, a word may appear twice or more, such as the word the and is:
The sun is shining and the girl is playing with her toys under the shade of a tree.
Such words in the example are distinct tokens of a single type (Carstairs-McCarthy,
2002:5). Thus, in the above sentence, there are 18 tokens and 15 types (the and is are
repeated). In simpler words, one may say two performances of the same tune, two copies
of the same book, are distinct tokens of one type.