An Introduction to The National Language Research Institute: A Sketch of its Achievements
Third Edition(1988)/ HTML Version(1997)

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II.3.12 Studies on the Vocabulary of Senior High School Textbooks I, II

(I. Report 76, 1983. 574 pages; II. Report 81, 1984. 470 pages)
These books report on a vocabulary survey of 4 science textbooks (Physics I, Chemistry I, Biology I, Geology I) and 5 social science textbooks (Social Ethics, Politics and Economics, Japanese History, World History, Geography B) used in high schools in 1974. The purpose of this study was to ascertain which vocabulary items are thought to be important for the acquisition of technical knowledge in each field as part of general education. In contrast to previous surveys of this sort, which sampled parts of textbooks, in the present survey we adopted a method of total enumeration for the purpose of describing and analyzing the system of vocabulary, writing forms, and expression in written texts. We used the following two units, with refinements of their previous definition: "W units," based on elements which compose sentences and "M units," based on the elements (morphemes) which compose words. The vocabulary counts obtained were as follows: M Units W Units Running Different Running Different Words Words Words Words Science 205,582 5,304 159,046 13,067 Social Science 388,684 13,175 292,504 31,260 Total 594,266 15,662 451,550 40,998 In addition, the proportion of M unit word types, disregarding auxiliary words, was as follows: Japanese words- 40.1% (14.7%), Chinese borrowed words- 62.3% (58.8%), borrowed words- 1.8% (6.1%), mixed words- 0.7% (0.7%), personal names and place names- 5.2% (19.8%). (The figures outside parentheses give the percentage of running (total) words and the figures inside parentheses, the percentage of different words.) It was particularly noteworthy that Chinese borrowed words made up over half of the total M units and that personal names and place names occupied a high percentage of the total of different words. All the data were in a form that could be processed by computer. In addition, a concordance of the vocabulary with context, Language Processing Data Source 1, Concordance of High School Textbook Vocabulary with Context (microfiche), is available to the public. Report 76 contains a vocabulary table of words in order of the Japanese 50-kana syllabary and a vocabulary table of words in order of frequency of usage for the M units. Report 81 contains similar tables for the W units. This research was directed by HAYASI Siro~, SAIGA Hideo, TANAKA Akio, ISIWATA Tosio, TUTIYA Sin'iti, NAKANO Hirosi, TURUOKA Akio, NOMURA Masaaki, SATAKE Hideo, SAITO Hidenori, TANAKA Takusi, and YONEDA Masato. The results were written up by TUTIYA Sin'iti, NAKANO Hirosi and TURUOKA Akio.

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