ERIC Number: EJ1457125
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2024
Pages: 13
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1927-5250
EISSN: EISSN-1927-5269
Available Date: N/A
Reversed Subtitling and Extensive Reading: The Case of English-Subtitled Mandarin Dramas
Wenhua Hsu
Journal of Education and Learning, v13 n6 p1-13 2024
The binge-watching phenomenon on college campuses in Taiwan inspired this study. The researcher often overhears her students chatting about which Mandarin TV series they have been binge-watching recently. Given this drama fever, which may provide an impetus for sustained reading of on-screen text, the researcher is concerned with English vocabulary growth if the viewing habit shifts from Mandarin to English subtitles. A corpus of over 5.6 million English-subtitled words from 37 Mandarin dramas was compiled, totaling 1,238 episodes. The operational measures involved the ranked twenty-five 1000-word-family lists along the British National Corpus and the Corpus of Contemporary American English word-frequency scale. Results show that Mandarin drama English subtitles reached the 2000-3000 word-family levels at 95% text coverage and extended to the 4000-5000 levels at 98% coverage subject to genres. EFL Mandarin drama fans may encounter most words from each of the 1st to 6th 1000-word-family lists twelve times or more for potential learning by continually watching up to 24 English-subtitled Mandarin dramas. Moreover, twenty participants expressed their views on watching English-subtitled Mandarin dramas to a certain level of agreement. For extensive reading practitioners, the results may be a reference concerning what vocabulary level EFL learners may attain if they binge-watch English-subtitled Mandarin dramas in their leisure time.
Descriptors: Captions, English (Second Language), Second Language Learning, Mandarin Chinese, Drama, Television Viewing, Foreign Countries, Vocabulary, Word Frequency, Reading, Student Attitudes, College Students, Leisure Time
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Taiwan
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A