Medicinal Plant Research 2025, Vol.15, No.6, 244-253 http://hortherbpublisher.com/index.php/mpr 246 rhetorical strategies are used. To support both qualitative and quantitative studies of text structure and discourse organization, XML-based or tree-structured annotation methods can be used for coding (Devitt, 2015; Hao, 2020; Fonseca et al., 2022). 3 Lexical Features of Scientific Discourse in Ginseng Studies 3.1 Use of academic vocabulary and technical terms The research discourse on ginseng has highly specialized vocabulary. Common terms include “ginsenoside,” “biosynthesis,” “pharmacology,” “polysaccharides,” and “genetic diversity.” These frequent words form an interconnected network of concepts, showing the multidisciplinary nature of this field. Among them, “ginsenoside” often serves as the central node because of its importance in pharmacological and molecular studies (Figure 1) (Shi et al., 2019; Ito and Ito, 2024). Bibliometric and topic modeling analyses indicate that keywords mainly cluster around key research themes such as pharmacological activity, structural analysis, and bioactive compounds (Chen et al., 2017; Shin et al., 2021). In various studies on ginseng, pharmacology and molecular biology terms appear widely. Many papers focus on pharmacodynamics, pharmacokinetics, and molecular mechanisms of action (Shi et al., 2019; Ito and Ito, 2024). Terms like “antioxidant”, “immunomodulation”, “biosynthesis”, and “gene expression” appear frequently, showing the close connection between molecular biology and pharmacology in modern ginseng research (Chen et al., 2017; Shi et al., 2019). Figure 1 Co-occurrence network of high-frequency academic terms in ginseng research discourse Image caption: 'Ginsenoside' acts as central node connecting pharmacological, molecular, and biochemical domains 3.2 Dynamic and interdisciplinary lexical features The vocabulary system in ginseng research shows clear dynamism and interdisciplinarity. It reflects the broad borrowing of terms from metabolomics and pharmacology. For example, terms such as “metabolite analysis”, “UPLC-Q-TOF-MS”, “multi-omics”, and “network pharmacology” have appeared frequently in recent literature (Wu et al., 2018; Shin et al., 2021; Li et al., 2022). These changes reflect both technological progress in research methods and deeper integration across disciplines (Wu et al., 2018; Li et al., 2022). Keyword evolution analysis shows that research on ginseng has shifted from early studies on cultivation and basic pharmacology to emerging topics such as gut microbiota, oxidative stress, and omics-based research. Burst keywords and trending topics further reveal that the research focus is moving toward functional mechanisms, clinical applications, and a systems biology perspective (Chen et al., 2017; Yu et al., 2024). 3.3 Semantic patterns and collocational tendencies The collocation analysis shows that in ginseng studies, common high-frequency word combinations include “ginsenoside + effect”, “ginsenoside + activity”, and “ginsenoside + mechanism”. These combinations highlight
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjQ4ODYzNA==