Text Analysis of Physical Education Textbooks:

Toward the Development of a Basic Vocabulary List for Track and Field Contexts

Abstract

This study focuses on athlete international students who balance academic study with intensive athletic training and therefore have limited opportunities for Japanese language learning. As part of Japanese language education support for these students, the study aims to develop a basic vocabulary list that facilitates communication and understanding in extracurricular sports activities, particularly track and field. Using physical education practical textbooks as source texts, 110 vocabulary items were extracted through textual analysis. The results reveal that Japanese used in track and field contexts contains many words related to physical movement and bodily states, including verbs, nouns, and adjectives that are rarely addressed in general Japanese language education.