Medical English course

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Medical English course
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• CONTENUTI DEL CORSO
• Analisi e traduzione di testi medici
• Obiettivo
• agevolare la comprensione scritta
• Acquisizione di lessico specialistico
• B. Bertinelli, N. Carlini, P. Catenaccio,
  English for Medicine vol.1, Milano, Hoepli, 2005.
• Corso base di supporto Face-to-Face elementary
• Laboratorio di autoapprendimento, Centro
  Linguistico

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Terminology

• Medical terminology is basically Latin or Greek
  in origin and is made up of many smaller parts.
  It might be useful to think of the terminology as
  being like a jigsaw. Each part has a meaning and
  when joined together with the next part the
  meaning changes until when all parts are added a
  final meaning can be found. In this section we
  will be looking at how medical terminology is
  formed and at the most common terms you will need
  to learn. 
• Medical terms are made up of four basic elements.

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1. The Word Root

• Word roots come largely from Latin and Greek and
  are the stem or main part of the medical term.
  Below you can see some very common medical word
  roots.
• Do you know what they mean?
• bi, erythr, haem, leuc, path, tox

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2. The combining form of a word root

• Root words are very often preceded by a prefix,
  followed by a suffix and joined with a combining
  vowel.
• The most common combining vowel is o, but can
  also be a, e ori.
• When we add the combining vowel, we get a new
  word component the combining form.
• This makes the words easier to say.
•   Gastr- o Gastro
• e.g. gastroenteritis

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3. A PREFIX

•  
• The prefix comes before the word root and changes
  its meaning
• These are derived from Latin and Greek  
•                             prefix       
  root        suffix
•                             EPI       
  GASTR-        IC
• epi prefix meaning 'upon or above'     
• gastr- root meaning 'stomach'      
• ic suffix meaning 'related to'
•    Epigastric pertaining to above or upon the
  stomach

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4. A SUFFIX

• A suffix comes after the word and modifies its
  meaning.
•    Prefix      Combining 'o'    suffix
•          Gastr        o               
  tomy
•  
• Gastr- meaning stomach           
• -tomy suffix meaning 'incision' (cut) into
•                               
• Gastrotomy incision into the stomach

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• Now that you know how words are formed, you need
  to remember three golden rules in the formation
  of medical terminology

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Rule 1 Joining a combining form to a suffix

• Leave the combining vowel in place unless the
  suffix begins with a vowel. If it does drop it!
•  
• gastr/o logy gastrology
• gastr/o tomy gastrotomy 
• gastr/o itis  gastritis
• gastr/o ectomy gastrectomy

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Rule 2 Joining two word roots

• Some words contain two or more combining forms of
  words. In these cases, the combining form of the
  first word is left in place.
• trache/o bronch/o itis tracheobronchitis

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Rule 3 Joining a prefix to a root

• If a prefix ends with a vowel and is added to a
  root that starts with a vowel or h drop the
  vowel of the prefix.
• anti acid antacid
• NOTE this is only advisory there are many
  exceptions periosteitis

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ESP

• The way in which English varies according to its
  use in particular situations gt
• English for Special/Specific Purposes
• (vs General English)
• examples...

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• ESP is classified in terms of
• Field of discourse gtshared vocabulary
• Purpose (functional tenor)
• Description, report, exposition, instruction,
  argumentation
• MEDIUM
• ESP is more strongly oriented towards written
  forms

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• The complete grammar of General English belongs
  to ESP
• Same processes of morphology and word formation
• The selection of vocabulary is influenced by the
  field
• Terminology is at least partially standardised to
  avoid ambiguity
• Special visual elements may be employed.
• English is selected, restricted, special

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EST (English for Science and Technology)

• Greater frequency of the passive
• Greater frequency of non-defining relative
  clauses compared to defining ones
• Specific, frequently employed, rhetorical devices
  such as anaphora, parallelism, parenthetical
  elements, emphatic inversion, rhetorical
  questions, ellipsis
• Occurrence of new plurals (fats, oils) and Latin
  and Greek plurals

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SCIENTIFIC ENGLISH

• Neutral, unemotional, objective tone
• Abbreviations, numerals, symbols
• Lexical density (nominal style)
• Impersonal style
• Passive forms
• Selection of pronouns employed (we/this/these
  less so I, he, even less so she, you)
• Noun phrases with complex structures
• (e.g. transparent removable alignment grid)
• Compactness of structure (use of parentheses)
• Low use of cohesive devices

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Nominalisation

• An on-line analysis of the ultrasonic radio
  frequency signal was performed to obtain
  quantitative operator independent measurement of
  the integrated backscatter signal of the
  ventricular septum and the posterior wall.
• Nominalization Verb
• On-line analysis to analyze
• Quantitative operator independent measurement
  to measure

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• The ultrasonic radio frequency signal was
  evaluated by on-line analysis to obtain
  quantitative operator independent measurement of
  the integrated backscatter signal of the
  ventricular septum and the posterior wall.
• The ultrasonic radio frequency signal was
  analyzed on-line to measure in an operator
  independent way integrated backscatter.

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• Our analysis of the results of the experiment did
  not provide an explanation of its failure,
  because our data collection lacked the precision
  needed.
• When we analyzed the results of the experiment we
  could not explain why it failed, because we did
  not collect data precisely.

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• Our lack of data prevented evaluation of state
  action in targeting funds to areas in need of
  assistance.
• Because we lacked data, we could not evaluate
  whether the state had targeted funds to areas
  that needed assistance.

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Noun phrases - premodification

• partial genetic dysfunction maps
• adverse contaminant bacterial reaction
• rapid tree stem contraction

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• il sintagma
• decreased water tolerance phenomenon
• potrebbe essere interpretato in tre modi diversi
  
• the phenomenon of tolerance of decreased water
  (il fenomeno di tollerare la diminuzione di
  acqua)
• the phenomenon of waters decreased tolerance (il
  fenomeno di una minor tolleranza da parte
  dellacqua).
• decreased tolerance phenomenon to water (il
  fenomeno diminuito di tolleranza allacqua)

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• Esercizio 1
• Early childhood breathing disorder misdiagnosis.
• The misdiagnosis of early childhood breathing
  disorder.
• The misdiagnosis of breathing disorders in early
  childhood.
• Esercizio 2
• The ongoing systematic model application.
• The ongoing systematic application of the model.
  ?? The models ongoing systematic application.