An Econometric Analysis of the Features of Vocabulary Use in Intermediate and Advanced Scientific Chinese Texts

Abstract

At present, the construction of “Chinese plus special-purpose” teaching materials has achieved remarkable results, among which the publication volume of Chinese teaching materials for scientific and technological purposes ranks among the top three. The study on the characteristics of vocabulary uses and arrangement in the text can better play its role as a bridge between general language teaching materials and professional skills teaching materials, and serve the special purpose Chinese teaching and learning. In this study, the text in Science and Technology Chinese Intermediate Reading Course and Science and Technology Chinese Advanced Reading Course is taken as research materials, and the three elements of vocabulary richness, text difficulty and vocabulary repetition are measured, and compared with the words in the “International Chinese Language Education Chinese Proficiency Level Standards.” The results show that there is no positive correlation between lexical diversity and difficulty level. The difficulty coefficient of Intermediate text varies greatly under the average word length and sentence length; The repetition rate and repetition interval of the two textbooks are low; About 50% of the words in the two textbooks are non-standard words, and only about 20% are words that are not standard words for six or more times. Based on the characteristics of vocabulary use in sci-tech Chinese textbooks, we give suggestions from three aspects: textbook compilation, student learning and teacher teaching. Based on the characteristics of vocabulary coverage compared with the Standards, we believe that we should establish a special outline for sci-tech Chinese, and put forward three reference principles.