The Potential for Learning Specialized Vocabulary of University Lectures and Seminars Through Watching Discipline‐Related TV Programs: Insights From Medical Corpora

This study investigated the potential of discipline‐related television programs as sources for incidental learning of specialized vocabulary used in university lectures and seminars. First, a Medical Spoken Word List (MSWL) of 895 specialized word types was developed from a 556,074‐word corpus of medical lectures and seminars based on a mixed method: corpus‐driven analysis, specialized dictionary checking, and expert ratings. Then, an 11,036,771‐word corpus of 37 medical television programs was developed and analyzed to examine the extent to which the MSWL words were encountered in these programs. Adopting 5 encounters or more, 10 encounters or more, 15 encounters or more, and 20 encounters or more as the frequency cutoff points at which incidental learning may happen, this study found that the number of MSWL words that met these cutoff points increased as the number of episodes, seasons, and programs increased. This indicates that discipline‐related television programs are potential sources for incidental learning of specialized vocabulary used in lectures and seminars if these programs are watched regularly and in a sequential order.