Linguistic Analysis of Medical Discourse -­‐ A Contrastive Approach Anamarija Gjuran-­‐Coha, Ph.D. University of Rijeka, Croatia The Language of Medicine  The language employed by doctors and nurses in writing medical publications and in communicating with each other or with their patients.  Medical terminology -­‐ a specific terminology used to achieve the purpose of communication in the healthcare efficiently and precisely. Characteristics of Medical Terminology  most medical words are made of roots (determining the meaning) and affixes (to change the speech parts or change the meaning of the word).  an open system with a large number of low-­‐frequency words and newly created words. The English Language of Medicine  Greek origin: diarrhoea, emphysema, myopia, pneumonia, trauma etc.  Medical Latin: -­‐ Greek terms were imported directly; -­‐ they were latinized and written with Latin letters replacing Greek endings by Latin ones, eg. bronchus (Gr. bronchos), colon (Gr. kolon), Latin origin: mandible (Lat. mandibula), puncture (Lat. punctura), pulp (Lat. pulpa).  Adjective forms only: kidney→ renal, liver → hepatic, stomach → gastric.  Old English period: arm (O.E. earm), chin (O.E. cin), finger (O.E. fingor), liver (O.E. lifer), hair (O.E. haer) etc.  Scandinavian influence: ill (O.N. illr), kidney (O.N. kidenere), skin (O.N. skinn), leg (O.N.
leggr) etc. Organ (Engl) organ (Lat) organ (Greek) pathology adjective _____________________________________________________________ kidney ren nephros nephritis renal/nephric skin cutis derma dermatitis cutaneous/dermal   Other language influences: French -­‐ a medium for penetration of Latin and Greek words into English. Greek Latin French English ______________________________________________ atomos atomus atome atom spasmos spasmus spasme spasm diaita diaete diete diet -­‐ French: jaundice (Fr. jaunisse), poison (Fr. poison), faint (Fr. feint), migraine (Fr. migraigne). -­‐ Spanish: mosquito -­‐ Italian: pellagra, scarlatina, malaria etc.  Today's medical terminology is made of its own language elements.  English as a lingua franca -­‐ a language used for communication between groups of people who speak different languages. (Crystal 2006)
— 20th century -­‐ development of national medical terminologies and their standardization. The Croa)an Language of Medicine  Latin as the official language of medicine until 1847  The efforts towards the creation of Croatian medical terminology, eg. žlijezda, žučni kamenci, poplućnica etc.  Issue of writing diagnoses: Latin: sinusitis acuta Croatian: upala sluznice pobočnih nosnih šupljina Croatinized Latin: akutni sinusitis Council for the Standardization of the Croatian Language (2006)-­‐ diagnoses should be written both in Latin and Croatian.  Present day Croatian medical terminology: -­‐ classical origin, -­‐ English medical terms accepted to fill a lexical gap. Func)onal Styles of Language  Functional styles -­‐ the subsystems of language with their own features concerning vocabulary means, syntactical constructions and even phonetics.  Each functional style establishes its own norms which do not violate the general norm  Scientific prose style: -­‐ objective, -­‐ precise, -­‐ unemotional.
Characterized by:
-­‐ use of terminology, -­‐ choice of grammar and syntactic constructions, -­‐ logical sequence of utterances, -­‐ use of quotations, references and footnotes.  Newspaper style serves the purpose of informing and instructing the reader.  Characterized by: -­‐ neutral vocabulary, -­‐ newspaper cliches, -­‐ abbreviations, -­‐ neologisms. Synonymy  Synonyms in terminology denote words or word combinations which differ phonetically but express equal scientific concepts within a certain microsystem.  Unwanted in terminology as they make an exact communication more complicated. English:   myopia -­‐ shortsightedness -­‐ nearsightedness;   hyperopia -­‐ farsightedness -­‐ longsightedness;   choristoma -­‐ heterotopia;   brachytherapy -­‐ close-­‐range irradiation. Croatian:  screening -­‐ skrining -­‐ profilaktičko ispitivanje -­‐ probir;  bypass -­‐ bajpas -­‐ premosnica;  pace maker -­‐ pejs mejker -­‐ elektrostimulator srca -­‐ srčani elektrostimulator. Synonymy as the result of eponymy, i.e. the name derived from a person. English:  Down's syndrome -­‐ mongolism-­‐ mongolianism-­‐ trisomy 21  Graves disease -­‐ Basedow disease -­‐ toxic goitre Croatian: — Downow sindrom -­‐ mongolizam -­‐ trisomija 21  Gravesova bolest -­‐ Bazedovljeva bolest -­‐ hipertireoza Criteria Used to Avoid
Synonymy
— Criteria which correspond to the essential qualities of a term are used to avoid synonymy. — Motivation -­‐ a feature of a term that refers to the motive (stimulation) and to the path of its formation. eg. kopnica  Stability -­‐ a quality of a term not to change in space and time.  Unambiguity -­‐ one term used for one meaning.  Derivativeness -­‐ the ability of a word to form another. English: cervix -­‐ cervical Croatian: bajpas -­‐ premosnica bajpasni -­‐ premosni -­‐ premoštenje -­‐ premostiti skrining -­‐ probir -­‐ probirni -­‐ probiranje -­‐ probirati  Shortness -­‐ the tendency to express the several concepts in the shortest lexical and syntactic form. English: Short form Long form Antibiotics Antibiotic remedies Contraceptives Contraceptive devices Caesarean (section) Caesarean (section) delivery Croa)an: Short form Long term English term dijalizator aparat za dijalizu dialyser bubrega kočnica prolaktina čimbenik koji koči prolactine inhibitor lučenje prolaktina CT mozga CT snimka mozga CT brain scan The adapta)on to the system of the Croa)an language. Orthographic: bajpas, pejs mejker Morphologic: -­‐ terapija za sprečavanje clustera... -­‐ kućni peelinzi slabije su koncentracije... -­‐ svaka četvrta osoba žrtva je mobbinga. Syntactic Polysemy in Terminology Polysemy -­‐ terms of multiple meaning. English: Ligamentum —  A band or sheet of fibrous tissue connecting two or more bones, cartilages, or other structure serving as support for fasciae or muscles. —  A fold of peritoneum supporting any of abdominal viscera. —  The cordlike remains of a fetal vessel or Croa)an: Infiltracija 1.  Nenormalno prožimanje tkiva stanicama/
tvarima (upalnim, tumorskim, masnim) 2.  Injekcija lokalnog anestetika u tkivo Splicing 1.  reakcije istjecanja i spajanja RNA... (engl. splicing) 2.  ...egzoni se spajaju nakon izrezivanja RNA (engl. splicing) 3.  ...različitim prekrajanjem (engl. splicing) heterogene nuklearne RNA... Use of Abbrevia)ons  Abbreviation -­‐ a shortened form of a word or phrase, spelled variously according to the rules of a particular language and pronounced as separate sounds.  Acronym -­‐ a word formed from one to several capital initial letters or syllables.  used in written and oral medical communication.  economy in space and time,  incomprehensible and obscure meaning,  doubtful use from an ethical point of view; (Code of Medical Ethics and Deontology, 2002) The Forma)on of Abbrevia)ons   by the initial letters of words: English: ADD -­‐ attention deficit disorder BMI -­‐ body mass index CT -­‐ computerized tomography PTSD -­‐ post traumatic stress disorder Croatian: DNK -­‐ deoksiribonukleinska kiselina ITM -­‐ indeks tjelesne mase MR -­‐ magnetska rezonancija  by clipping, i.e. by shortening. -­‐ ori sequence -­‐ origin sequence ori sekvencija -­‐ urianalysis -­‐ urino analysis uroanaliza -­‐ urološka analiza   the colloquial style patofiza -­‐ patofiziologija  by blending, consisting of the initial or final syllables of the words. English WELLNESS -­‐ WELLbeing and fitNESS LINAC -­‐ LINear ACcelerator GABAuria -­‐ GABA in the urine  Croatian KAPRA -­‐ KAPacitet polja RAzumljivosti DITEPER cjepivo -­‐ DIfterija TEtanus PERtusis Pleonasms in Abbrevia)on  Pleonastic constructions -­‐ the use of more words or word parts than necessary. Abbreviation English term Croatian full term PMS sindrom premenstrual sydrome predmenstrualni sindrom sindrom OGTT test oral glucose tolerance test opterećenja test glukozom test Pleonas)c Construc)ons  Other pleonastic constructions: liječenje radioterapijom, laserske zrake, fokalno žarište. Polysemy in Abbrevia)ons Abbreviation English Croatian ABC 1. Airway, Breathing, Circulation 2. Aspiration Biopsy Cytology 3. Antigen Binding Capacity 1. Dišni put, disanje, cirkulacija 2. Citologija iz uzorka 3. Sposobnost vezanja antigena CML 1. Cell-­‐mediated lymphocytotoxicity 2. Chronic myelocytic leukemia 1. stanična limfotoksičnost 2. kronična mijelocitna leukemija Nominaliza)on  a syntactic phenomenon used in specialized texts consisting of using a noun instead of a verb.  the verb acts as a copula linking more complex noun phrases. The complete development of the fracture model requires an understanding of the bone-­‐rupture  In Croatian the same phenomenon which does not conform to the norm. *prostata antigen (Engl. prostate antigen) -­‐ antigen prostate or prostatični antigen * late-­‐reacting normalna tkiva (Engl. late-­‐reacting normal tissues →normal
tissues which have a late reaction) -­‐ normalna tkiva sa kasnom reakcijom Conclusion The most important issues concerning both English and Croatian medical language:   Synonymy should be avoided.  Polysemy is unwanted in terminology.  Abbreviations should be moderately used, never in the communication with the patient.  Nominalization does not conform with the Croatian language standard so it should be transformed.