Are TED Talks Suitable Materials for Humanities Specialized Vocabulary Learning?

Abstract

Previous studies have revealed the pedological significance of TED talks for academic vocabulary learning. However, their suitability as learning materials for humanities students remains unclear. This study will use a corpus-based method to investigate whether TED talks are appropriate materials for humanities students to learn specialized spoken vocabulary. A Humanities TED talks Corpus (HTTC) and five sub-corpora of different subjects are developed as research objects. The coverage of three wordlists over the HTTC and sub-corpora is analysed and compared, including Academic Word List (AWL), Academic Spoken Word List (ASWL), and Soft Science Word List (SSWL). Levels 2-4 coverage of ASWL and SSWL is analysed with emphasis because they can better represent academic lexis. An additional corpus of TED Ed is also developed to advance the current investigation. The findings revealed that SSWL had higher coverage (86.2% overall, 8.9% in levels 2-4) than ASWL (85.2% overall, 7.7% in levels 2-4), which suggested that humanities related TED talks can be potential materials for specialized spoken vocabulary learning. The coverage comparison among sub-corpora reported the highest coverage of History, which was discovered due to the large percentage of TED Ed talks, presumably a more technical speech event of TED talks. This study may provide pedological instruction for introducing TED talks as supplementary materials into English for specific academic purpose (ESAP) classes to benefit humanities students’ specialized spoken vocabulary learning.