THESIS A STUDY ON TYPICAL FEATURES OF WORD FORMATION IN ENGLISH MEDICAL TERMINOLOGY KHẢO SÁT CÁC ĐẶC ĐIỂM CẤU TẠO TỪ CỦA THUẬT NGỮ Y HỌC TIẾNG ANH HOANG THI HAN Field: English Lan
Trang 1MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY
M.A THESIS
A STUDY ON TYPICAL FEATURES OF WORD
FORMATION IN ENGLISH MEDICAL
TERMINOLOGY
(KHẢO SÁT CÁC ĐẶC ĐIỂM CẤU TẠO TỪ CỦA
THUẬT NGỮ Y HỌC TIẾNG ANH)
HOANG THI HAN
Field: English Language
Code: 8220201
Hanoi, 2018
Trang 2MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY
M.A THESIS
A STUDY ON TYPICAL FEATURES OF WORD
FORMATION IN ENGLISH MEDICAL
TERMINOLOGY
(KHẢO SÁT CÁC ĐẶC ĐIỂM CẤU TẠO TỪ CỦA
THUẬT NGỮ Y HỌC TIẾNG ANH)
HOANG THI HAN
Field: English Language
Code: 8220201
Supervisor: Assoc Prof., Dr Nguyen Thi Thanh Huong
HANOI, 2018
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CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY
I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled
“A study on typical features of word formation in English medical
terminology” submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Master in English Language Except where the reference is indicated, no other
person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the text of the thesis
Hanoi, 2018
Approved by SUPERVISOR
Assoc Pro., Dr Nguyen Thi Thanh Huong
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor Ph.D Nguyen Thi Thanh Huong, who has patiently supported me through the stages of the study, and whose stimulating ideas, expertise, and suggestions have inspired me greatly through my growth as an academic researcher
I would like to express my gratitude to other lecturers for the useful comments, remarks and engagement through the learning process of this master thesis
Finally, I must express my very profound gratitude to my family for providing me with unfailing support and continuous encouragement throughout my years of study and through the process of researching and writing this thesis This accomplishment would not have been possible without them Thank you
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ABSTRACT
The study is carried out to investigate typical features of word formation in English medical terminology The main purpose of the study is word formation but besides that it also looks into if the word formation affects the syntactic semantic (the use of prefix and suffix) of the word or not The study is limited to 396 terminologies which were taken from the two chapters: 3, 4 and 6 of the book
Medicine and Surgery After being collected, 396 terminologies are described and
analyzed by descriptive method and then classified into groups of semantic features The writer also conducts a qualitative research as a description of data from the source Data analysis techniques used are collecting, analyzing and classifying Morphological features are presented through ways of creating terminology and types of English medical terminology The study will be conducted through three steps: first, data are collected from the chosen materials and other references; then, the data are analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively to figure out the typical features of word formation in English medical terminology; finally, the results are classified and presented in form of tables, after that the rate of typical ways of word formations are shown in the diagrams The findings of the study on typical features
of word formation in English medical terminology would be a great contribution to help the learners at Nam Dinh university of Nursing to use medical terminology in general and read the foreign documents effectively in particular The findings are also helpful to the readers with translating English medical terminology while reading medical documents
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LIST OF TABLES AND DIAGRAMS
Diagram 1: Derivative medical terminologies in English 37
Diagram 2: Popularity of suffixes in derivative medical terminologies in English 37
Diagram 3: Kinds of suffixes in derivative medical terminologies in English 40
Diagram 4: Kinds of compound in medical terminologies in English 41
Diagram 5: Shortenings in medical terminologies in English 42
Table 3.1: Kinds of suffixes in derivative medical terminologies in English 38
Table 3.2.1 Main types of meanings 46
Table 3.2.2 Terminology meanings 47
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter 1.INTRODUCTION 1
1.1 Rationale 1
1.2 Aims and objectives of the study 2
1.3 Research questions 3
1.4 Methods of the study 3
1.5 Scope of the study 4
1.6 Significance of the study 4
1.7 Design of the study 4
Chapter 2.LITERATURE REVIEW 6
2.1 Previous studies 6
2.2 An over view of word and word formation 8
2.2.1 Word 8
2.2.2 Word Formation 8
2.3 Morpheme 9
2.4 Affixes 10
2.5 Concept of Derivation and Inflection 11
2.6 Concept of Derivation without Affix 13
2.7 The transpositions which happen due to the process of derivation according to Rozelin (2011) 14
2.8 Compound 16
2.9 Shortenings 18
2.10 Definition of terminology 19
2.11 Main features of terminology 20
2.11.1 Accurateness 20
2.11.2 Systematism 21
2.11.3 Internationalism 21
2.11.4 Nationalism 22
2.11.5 Popularity 22
2.12 The creation of terminology 22
2.13 The distinction between terminology and word 23
2.14 Definition of medical terminology 23
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2.15 Main features of medical terminology 25
2.15.1 Synonymous character of medical terminology 26
2.15.2 Eponyms in medical terminology 28
2.15.3 The structure of medical terminology of Greek-Latin origin and their adaptation in medical terminology 29
2.15.4 Word-formation principles of medical terminology of Greek-Latin origin 29 2.15.5 Adaptation of medical terms of Greek-Latin origin in medical terminology 30
2.16 English for specific purpose 31
2.17 Summary 33
Chương 3.MORPHOLOGICAL AND SEMANTIC FEATURE OF ENGLISH MEDICAL TERMINOLOGY 34
3.1 Morphological features of English medical terminology 34
3.1.1 Typical ways of forming medical terminologies in English 34
3.1.1.1 Affixes 34
3.1.1.2 Compound words 40
3.1.1.3 Shortenings 41
3.1.1.4 Back-formation 43
3.1.1.5 Conversion or functional shift 43
3.1.1.6 Semantic shift 43
3.1.2 Borrowing words 44
3.1.3 Creating from scratch 44
3.2 Semantic features of English medical terminology 45
3.2.1 Meaning and meaning perspectives 45
3.2.2 Classification of English medical terminologies in terms of semantics 47
Chapter 4.TEACHING AND LEARNING TRANSLATING ENGLISH MEDICAL TERMINOLOGY 50
4.1 Subjects 50
4.2 Tasks 52
4.2.1 For teaching English medical terminologies 52
4.2.2 For learning English medical terminologies 53
4.3 Procedures 53
4.4 Data collection 53
4.5 Difficulties 53
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4.5.1 Word formation 53
4.5.2 Translation 58
Chapter 5.CONCLUSION 68
5.1 Recapitulation 68
5.2 Concluding remarks 70
5.3 Limitation of the study 70
5.4 Implications for teaching and learning English medical terminology 70
5.5 Recommendations for further studies 71
REFERENCE 72
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Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale
Theoretically, medical terminology is a topic which has been interested in by many scientists and researchers In the word, there are many researchers investigating characteristics of English medical terminology in some aspects such
as: An Introduction to Medical Terminology - Greek and Latin Derivations by
George L Banay, Ph.D, Librarian, Worcester State Hospital, Worcester, Mass
PhDr Božena Džuganova, Comenius University had an article about – different
ways of forming medical terms Anna BROWNE (Akademia im Jana Długosza
Częstochowie) wrote an article about “selected medical translation problems” in
2016 Other researchers have carried out researches about translation English medical terminology into different languages
In Vietnam, the dissertation “Khảo sát thuật ngữ y học tiếng Anh và cách
phiên chuyển sang tiếng Việt” was carried out by Vuong Thi Thu Minh Many
articles about word formation of English medical terminology have also written by Nguyen Phuoc Vinh Co and his partners In recent years, there has been an increase
in the amount of studies on medical terminology Many of which have had considerable contribution to the improvement of health care However, studies on English medical terminology seem not to have fulfilled the need of this area, the reason for this deficiency, as consider before, is that the number of terminologies is huge
As a matter of fact, in the process of using medical terminologies not only doctors, nurses or specialists in health care but also especially medical learners who want to learn them for their learning have difficulties in thoroughly understanding medical terminology
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Medical terminology is a special vocabulary used by health care professionals for effective and accurate communication and for normal people to get information about health from documents every day Because it is based mainly on Greek and Latin words, medical terminology is consistent and uniform throughout the world It is also efficient; although some of the terms are long, they often reduce
an entire phrase to a single word The one word gastroduodenostomy, for example,
stands for “a communication between the stomach and the first part of the small intestine This state may be reasonable for the fact that medical terminologies are complex in their structure
The medical vocabulary is vast, and learning it may seem like learning the entire vocabulary of a foreign language The task seems overwhelming, but there are methods that can aid in learning and remembering words and can even help in making informed guesses regarding the meanings of unfamiliar words Most medical terminologies can be divided into component parts-roots, prefixes, and suffixes-that maintain the same meaning whenever they appear By learning these meanings, learners can analyze and remember many words easily
In context of Nam Dinh University of Nursing, learners are supposed to learn English medical terminologies in the second year of the course Being a teacher of English here, I find that the study on typical features of word formation in English medical terminology is expected to have a small contribution to learners’ learning English medical terminology
1.2 Aims and objectives of the study
The study aims at helping the learners use English medical terminology in general and read English language document effectively in particular
In order to achieve the aim, the study is expected to reach the following objectives:
Trang 121 What are morphological features of English medical terminology?
2 What are semantic features of English medical terminology?
3 What are the implications for teaching and learning English medical terminology?
1.4 Methods of the study
So as to acquire the aims and objectives of the study, the descriptive method
is used to carry out the study This method is suitable for the study it is used to describe characteristics or features, the main procedure throughout the study The writer also conducts a qualitative research as a description of data from the source One of the characteristics of qualitative research is descriptive research and a sub-category of that is documentary analysis Documents are printed paper furnishing information In this one, the documentary analysis focused on the list of terminologies from the chosen materials The major data collection technique is collecting the English medical terminology in the materials Data analysis techniques used are collecting, analyzing and classifying The study will be conducted through the following steps: first, data are collected from the three chapters: 3, 4 and 6 and the other references; The componential analysis method is used to analyze structure components of chosen English medical terminologies;
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after that, the data are analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively to figure out the typical features of word formation in English medical terminology; finally, the results are classified and presented in forms of tables and shown on diagrams
1.5 Scope of the study
The study will be limited in typical features of word formation in English
medical terminologies taken from the three chapters in the book Medicine and
Surgery by Giles Kendall and Kin Yee Shiu published by Blackwell Publishing
The study mainly investigate word formation of English medical terminology but besides that it also looks into if the word formation affects the syntactic semantic (the use of prefix and suffix) of the word or not There are 396 English medical terminologies investigated and analyzed in the present study
1.6 Significance of the study
Theoretically, this study is expected to contribute to the theoretical foundation of terminology, in terms of systemizing general theories as well as theory of English medical terminology It also confirms and provides detailed presentation on English medical terminology
Practically, the findings of the study, to some extent, The findings of the study on typical features of word formation in English medical terminology would
be a great contribution to help the learners to use medical terminology in general and read the foreign documents effectively in particular The findings are also helpful to the readers with translating English medical terminologies in health sections in English newspapers It can be used as a referential material in teaching translating English medical terminology at medical schools
1.7 Design of the study
The thesis consists of 5 chapters:
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Chapter 1, Introduction, includes rationale, aims and objectives, research
questions, methods and scope, significance, and design of the study are presented
Chapter 2, Literature review, is the second chapter that summarizes the
results of other researchers who have worked on the problem and gives an overview
on English medical terminology
Chapter 3, Morphological and semantic features of English medical terminology, describes procedures including data collection and data analysis
technique, analyzing data and interpreting the results
Chapter 4, Implications of teaching and learning English medical terminologies, states implications in teaching and learning English medical
terminology at Nam Dinh university of Nursing
Chapter 5, Conclusion, which summarizes the results found after
investigating typical features of word formation in English medical terminology, points out the limitation of the study as well as offers some recommendations for further study
References and Appendix come at the end of the study
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Chapter 2 LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Previous studies
No sooner did terminology acquire a scientific orientation than it was recognize as a socially important activity only in the 20th century Since then terminology has been discussed variously by many different foreign and Vietnamese linguists
A theoretically oriented approach towards terminology began no earlier than in the
20th century This development was triggered by the Austrian E Wuster, who originally came from the field of engineering and is seen as the founder of the general theory of terminology He talked about terminology in the book
Introduction to the general theory of terminology and terminological lexicography
(1979) His new perception was that terminology was two-folded: one side was occupied by systematized concepts of a specific subject area, whereas the other belonged to the designation However, Wuster’s work has been criticized by many specialists in the area as it did not succeed in representing terminology as an independent discipline
Studying terminology processing, Sager (1990) contributed the theory of terminology: It can be identified as having three different dimensions i.e the cognitive, the linguistic, and the communicative dimension The linguistic dimension of the theory of terminology can be detected mainly in the linguistic mechanism the set the patterns for term formation management for the English language, for general and specific purposes It was particularly suitable for translation courses, technical writers, as well as for non-linguists who are confronted with the terminology processing as part of their profession
Rey (1995), in Terminology: Norms and Notions, indicated that the cognitive dimension of terminology resulted from the cognitive nature of its own subject of
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study, and was thus not a particularly of its theory What was interesting about terminology was that it succeed in linking the cognitive dimension with social needs via linguistic forms; thus it contributed to the optimization of communication between experts and mediators who transfer knowledge, such as terminologist, translators, etc., and general public
Another research was written by Lewis DJ (1996) from Journal of Speech and
Hearing research in USA This research titled - Children‘s Analysis of Derivational
Suffix Meaning focuses on the relation between school age children‘s production
and comprehension of derivational suffixes in nonsense words and their knowledge
of suffix meaning in real derivatives The results found in the research indicate that
knowledge of derivational suffixes was used often in defining low-frequency derivatives and that it was significantly correlated with suffix production in the nonsense task In addition, suffix productivity was found to be an important factor
determining the comprehension as well as the production of particular suffixes to
convey a range of meanings
Packeiser (2000) presents the general theory of terminology, the nature of concepts, conceptual relations, the relationship between terms and concepts, the designation
of terms to concepts The sphere of concepts is seen as independent from the sphere
of terms
The research was written by Kim Say Yong, Wang Min and Ko In Yeong from scholarly journal of Cambridge University Pres in Cambridge The study titled- The Processing of Derivational morphology in Korean - English Bilingual Reader focuses on the cross language activation occurs via decomposition during the processing of derived words in Korean-English bilingual readers The author of this study used a priming lexical decision to conduct three experiments The results of the three experiments are different: in experiment 1, when participants were given a real derived word and an interpretable derived pseudoword (i.e., illegal combination
of a stem and a suffix) in Korean as a prime, response times for the corresponding
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English-translated stem were significantly faster than when they had received an unrelated word In Experiment 2, non-morphological ending pseudo words (i.e., illegal combination of a stem and an orthographic ending) were included, and this did not show a priming effect In Experiment 3, non-interpretable derived pseudo words also yielded a significant priming effect just as the interpretable ones
In respect of terms, many Vietnamese authors have contributed their views in such aspects as general concepts, classification, characteristics, formations and creation
Đỗ Hữu Châu (1981:221), meanwhile, stated that tém not only indicate scientific concepts but name certain scientific phenonmena Besides, he stressed that one characteristics of terms was that a term was intended to indicate one meaning, denote one concept or name a certain scientific or technical object or event
The last research “Khảo sát thuật ngữ y học trong tiếng Anh và cách phiên chuyển sang tiếng Việt”, by Vuong Thi Thu Minh (2006)- survey and study systematically and comprehensively medical terminology in English as well as propose directions and solutions to the transfer of medical terms in English into Vietnamese and it also internationalizes and standardizes medical terminology
In conclusion, linguists have attempted to contribute to the theory of terms and terminology as a branch of linguistics These theories are supposed to be the orientation of this study
2.2 An over view of word and word formation
2.2.1 Word
2.2.2 Word Formation
The notion of what a word is, should, after all, not depend on the fancies of individual writers or the arbitrariness of the English spelling system The second problem with the orthographically defined word is that it may not always coincide
with our intuitions Thus, most of us would probably agree that girlfriend is a word (i.e one word) which consists of two words (girl and friend), a so-called
compound If compounds are one word, they should be spelled without a blank
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Basically, bound morpheme serves to form words A word referred to derivative only if the word has plural morphemes distributed syntactically and has the equivalent of the single word with single morpheme Before we step to the main discussion of this research, it is important to acknowledge an entity known as
morpheme which is the subject of study by the branch of linguistics known as
morphology
A morpheme is a short segment of language that meets three criteria:
(1) it is a word or a part of a word that has meaning, (2) it cannot be divided into smaller meaningful parts without violation of its meaning or without meaningless remainders, (3) it recurs in differing verbal environment with a relatively stable meaning The criteria simply indicate that morpheme is the smallest part of a word that has meaning and cannot be dividing into a smaller one because it will violate
the meaning of its morpheme For example, word speaker can be divided into
speak+er Word speak and suffix –er are both morphemes There is at least one
morpheme contained in a word Word like out, just, grace, person, ozone, London contain of one morpheme A word may also have more than one morpheme Outing,
justly, ungracious, personalize, ozonation, Londoner, are the example of words
which have more than one morphemes
Morpheme is divided into two, free and bound The one which be able
to stand alone with meaning is called free morpheme They may be lexical which
already has meaning by itself, such as Eat, word, mix, or grammatical morpheme,
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like at, and, but Unlike the free, a bound morpheme cannot be used alone with as a
word It is always annexed to one or more morphemes to form a word, in other
word they are parts of a word They may be lexical as in preview, played, activity, supervise The italicized letters in those words pre-, -ed, -ity, -vise are bound morphemes And they may be grammatical such as plural form as in boys, girls, and cats Hence, it can be inferred that those morphemes which can stand alone as words are called free morpheme (e.g., eat, word, mix) and those morphemes which occur only in combination are called bound morphemes (e.g., pre-, -s, -en, -ity)
The word bright - light with the word brighten - make light are
different The distinction between the two words is marked by the different form and different meaning The different form is the added of /-ǝ n/ in brighten, and the
difference in meaning is the added sense of - make to the word bright This leads us
to conclude that /-ǝ n/ means - make Thus we see that /-ǝn/ is a part of a word that
has meaning In other words, suffix -ǝ n is a morpheme
Another classification of morphemes put them into two classes, bases and affixes A base morpheme is the part of a word that has the principle The
italicized morphemes in these words are bases: denial, lovable, annoyance, re-enter
Bases are very numerous, and most of them in English are free morphemes But,
some are bond, like –sent in consent, dissent, and assent A word may contain one
base and several affixes In the other hand, Grammatical bound morphemes are
usually some affixes form (-ness, -ly, -ion, -s, -er, -ing) Morpheme divided into two
branches, namely, derivational morpheme and inflectional morpheme
2.4 Affixes
An affix is a bound morpheme that occurs before or after a base Affix consists of two types, prefixes and suffixes Prefixes are those bound morphemes that occur
before the bases, as in important, prefix, reconsider Prefixes in English are a small
class of morphemes, numbering about seventy-five Their meanings are often those
of English prepositions and adverbials
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Suffixes are bound morphemes that occur after a base, like shrinkage, failure, noisy, realize, nails, dreamed.Suffixes may pile up to the number of three or four, whereas
prefixes are commonly single, except for the negative un- before another prefix. In
normalizers we perhaps reach the limit with four: the base norm plus the four
suffixes –al, -ize, -er, -s When suffixes multiply like this, their order is fixed: there
is one and only one order in which they occur Dogs, oxen, discussing, bolder, boldest, chewed, chosen, are the some examples of inflectional affixes The words
to which these affixes (mostly suffixes) are attached are called stems The stem
includes the base or bases and all the derivational affixes Thus the stem of playboys
is playboy and that of beautified is beautify
The class of derivational affixes is much larger than that of the inflectional affixes, its members are less interdependent, and the new ones emerge now and then
Affixes like –ness forms abstract noun from adjectives, or –er forms agent nouns
from verbs, which are very productive, are also markedly stable in meaning Many derivational affixes, however, have more than one meaning and can be added to more than one category of base words
We can assume the root is a morpheme which is left over when all the derivational and inflectional morphemes, in this case affixes, have been removed For example,
the word immovability, im-, -abil, and -ity are all derivational morphemes When all the derivational morphemes were removed, the word move is left, which cannot be
further divided into the smaller meaningful pieces Therefore it must be the root of the word
2.5 Concept of Derivation and Inflection
In every discussion about derivation, surely, inflection has a place to be expostulated Traditionally, there are equations and differences which have been made between derivation and inflection The equation between derivation and inflection is in the relation of the members of a pair, consisting of the 'unmarked' base form and the 'marked' affixed form
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Bauer stated that derivation is morphemic process generate new lexeme, while inflection is morphemic process generate different type of word from in the same lexeme Lexemes are the vocabulary items that are listed in the dictionary For
example, the form pockling, pockle, pockles, pockled are different representations of the lexeme pockle They all share a core meaning although they are spelled and
pronounced differently
Verhaar (1977) in Subroto (1985) also stated that derivation is all change of affixation which oversteps the identity of words, while all change maintaining word identity referred to inflection Moreover, Katamba (1993) formulated that derivation is the process of word form which change the meaning of the base to the
new form, e.g kind to un- kind (both are adjective, but have an opposite meaning);
obey vs disobely (both are verb, but have an opposite meaning), or is changing the
word class of the base to form a new word, e.g the addition of –ly to the adjectives
kind and simple produces the adverbs kind-ly and simp-ly Meanwhile, inflection
does not change referential or cognitive meaning Inflectional suffix will not change
the word as derivational morpheme change the word kind to unkind before and will
not alter the word class of the base to which it is attached Inflectional morphemes are only able to modify the form of a word, thus it can fit into a particular syntactic slot
Those notions of change and do not change the word class correlated to the concept
of class maintaining and class changing from Bauer (1983) - A class maintains process of derivation produces lexemes which belong to the same form class as the base, while a class-changing process of derivation produces lexemes which belong
to a form class other than the form class of the base For example, when suffix –ly distributed to the word king (noun), it will generate an adjective kingly The
example points the case of class-changing derivation Another example, if the suffix
–dom is distributed to the word king (noun), it will generate a new word kingdom
which is also a noun, but different lexical meaning And it is the case of maintaining derivation
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In conclusion, the different of the two paradigms, from the previous discussion of derivation and inflection is derivation change the identity and the meaning of a single word, therefore, it forms a new lexeme, while inflection does not Inflection happens grammatically and has a different grammatical meaning which is predictable
Previously, this has been discussed by the author in chapter 1 about division of morphology branches according to Matthews It also discussed in Plag (2002) and Bauer (1983) Morphology deals with the internal structure of a word-form In morphology, the analysts divided word-forms into their component formatives (most of which are morphs realizing roots or affixes), and attempts to account for the occurrence of its formative Morphology divided into two shares, namely, inflection and word- formation Again, Word-formation divided into two, consisting
of derivation and compounding And derivation can be subdivided into class changing and class maintaining
One of the factor a word can be said as a derivative is if the distribution of affixes changes the identity of the word, with the result that it creates a new lexeme However, the derivational process is not always about the addition of affixation It can also occur without any of affixation in a word This type of derivation is usually
mentioned as conversion by many scholars
2.6 Concept of Derivation without Affix
So far, we have only encountered complex words that are created by concatenation, i.e by linking together bases and affixes as in a chain There are, however, also other, i.e non-concatenative, ways to form morphologically complex words
Conversion is the change in form class of a form without any corresponding change
of form The exact status of conversion within word formation is unclear For some scholars conversion is a brunch of derivation, for others it is a separate type of word formation on a level with derivation and compounding Frequently, a term which
Trang 23instance, the change of consonant in the word house (s) to the word house (z) The difference of consonant changes the class of the noun house into verb The other example is the change of the stress of word in expórt and éxport Verb usually has a stress in the end of the word, as in expórt, and it turns into a noun when the stress moves to the beginning of the word, as in éxport
2.7 The transpositions which happen due to the process of derivation according to Rozelin (2011)
The Derivational Process from Noun into Verb
It will be evident by now that suffixes play a larger role than prefixes in English
derivational morphology But there is still one prefix, namely, en- which forms verbs from a few nouns: enfeeble, enslave, empower, enrage, enthrone, entomb
Derivational Process from Noun to Adjective
The affixes of this process are numerous This process is affected by some affixes
Adjectives –ful and –less tend to come in pairs, although the correspondence is not exact: we have slothful but not slothless, andpenniless but not penniful This shows
that even when the meaning of a potential word may be easily guessable, the existence of the word is not guaranteed
Derivational Process From Noun to Noun
There is no prefix for this process However, some suffixes which can be added to form noun from the other noun The following suffixes form the nouns from the other nouns
Derivational Process from Adjective into Noun
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There are one prefix and several suffixes to form a noun from an adjective From all
the three suffixes which form a noun, -ness is the most widely applicable It gives
an abstract meaning to the base For example, the meaning of the word Highness is not -property of being high‘, but, it has a meaning of -royal personage‘, as in Her
Royal Highness
Derivational Process from Adjective to Verb
There are two prefixes and one suffix, according to Rozelin (2011), to form a verb from adjective
Besides –en, suffix –ise and –ify can also derive verbs from adjectival bases The words nationalise, tenderise, intensify, and purify, which are all verb, are the evident of this case To form a verb from adjective, we can combine the prefix en- with a suffix –en For example, the word bold derive into embolden, and the word
live derive into enliven
Derivational Process from Adjective into Adjective
Most of affixes that use to form adjective from the adjectival base are prefixes But according to McCarthy (2002), there is one suffix used for this process The only
suffix is –ish, meaning -somewhat X’, as in greenish, smallish, remotish
Derivational Process From Verb into Noun
It is only suffixes which form a noun from a verb According Rozelin (2011), the following suffixes are used to form a noun from a verb
Those suffixes cannot be used freely to the bases In English, the verb - perform turns into performance but not performent or performation to be a noun And also, the verb commit can be turned into three, commitment, committal, and commission but not commitance
The suffix –er is the one most generally used for forming nouns denoting a person
performing the action of the corresponding verb (agent noun) But it is not the only
agent suffixes, because there is the word typist and informant which use other
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suffixes The function of the Suffix –er is not only denoting a person For example,
digger which is more denoting a piece of machinery than a person
Derivational Process from Verb into Adjective
Only suffixes are used for this process According to Rozelin (2011), the following suffixes are used to form adjectives from verbal bases Some of the processes that derive adjectives from verbs straddle the divide between derivation and inflection in
a way that we have not yet encountered The suffixes –ed, -en, and –ing, and vowel
change, in passive and progressive participle forms of verb Such form can also be adjective
Derivational process from verb into verb
Prefix is the only affixes used in this process According to Rozelin (2011), the following prefixes are used to form verb from the other verbal bases
According to McCarthy (2002), the most prominent is re and the negative or reversive’ prefixes un-, de-, and dis-, as in repaint, re- enter, untie, untangle,
-decompose, desensitise, disentangle, disbelieve
Semantically, prefix de- in decompose is -not to undo the creative work of a musical
composer‘
Derivational Process from Adjective into Adverb
Some introductory treatments of English grammar talk as if all adverbs end in –
ly.But according to Rozelin (2011), suffixes –wise and –ward are also exist form
adverbs, for example likewise which has a meaning -in the same way‘
2.8 Compound
When two or more elements which could potentially be used as stems are combined
to form another stem, the form is said to be a compound This definition contains two crucial assumptions, the first being that compounds consist of two (and not more) elements, the second being that these elements are words
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Consider the expressions a green house, with its literal meaning, and a greenhouse,
meaning a glass structure (not usually green in color) where delicate plans are reared There is a different in sound corresponding to the difference in meaning: in
the first expression the main stress is on house, while in the second, the main stress
is on green Another example: blackboard (board for writing on), silkworm (caterpillar that spins silk), hairnet (net for covering hair)
The vast majority of compounds are interpreted in such a way that the left-hand
member somehow modifies the right-hand member Thus, a film society is a kind of
society (namely one concerned with films) Such compounds exhibit what is called
a modifier-head structure The term head is generally used to refer to the most
important unit in complex linguistic structures Examples:
Compound Verb:
1 Verb-verb (VV): stir-fry, freeze-dry
2 Noun-verb (NV): hand-wash, air-condition, steam-clean
3 Adjective-verb (AV): dry-clean, whitewash
Compound Adjective
1 Noun-adjective (NA): sky-high, cool-black
2 Adjective-adjective (AA): grey-green,
Compound Nouns
1 Verb-noun (VN): swearword, playtime
2 Noun-noun (NN): hairnet, mosquito net
3 Adjective-noun (AN): blackboard, greenstone
According to O‘Grady and Guzman (1996) there is also endocentric and exocentric compound, endocentric is compound that identifies the general class which the
meaning of the entire word belongs, for example: dog food is a type of food, while
exocentric is the meaning of compound does not follow from the meaning of its
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parts in this way, one of the case is the word redneck It is not a type of neck but an
ultra conservative, white working-class person.
2.9 Shortenings
Clipping
Clippings appear as a rather mixed bag of forms abbreviated from larger words, which, however, share a common function, namely, to express familiarity with the
denotation of the derivative Thus, lab is used by people who work in laboratory,
demo is part of the vocabulary of people who attend demonstrations, and so on
Blending
Blend is a kind of compound where at least one component is reproduced only
partially A straightforward example is smog, blended from smoke and fog A more
elaborate one is chortle, blended from chuckle and snort For another example:
Talkthon = talk and marathon
Cheeseburger = cheese and hamburger
Abbreviations and acronyms
Abbreviation is similar with blends and truncation, but, differs from truncation and blending in that prosodic categories do not play a prominent role Rather, orthography is of central importance Abbreviations are most commonly formed by taking initial letters of multiword sequences to make up a new word
BA: Bachelor of Arts
DC: District of Columbia
EC: European Community
FAQ: frequently asked question
Blends made up of initial letters are known as acronyms For the well- known
example is NATO, an acronym of North Atlantic Treaty Organization, ANZAC an acronym of Australian and New Zealand Army Corps
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2.10 Definition of terminology
Up to now there are various definitions of terminology by many linguists:
Terminology is defined as “a word or a combination of words that denotes the concept precisely and its relationship with other concepts in specific area Terminology is a specialized and restricted expression on things, phenomena, characteristics, and the relationship in a specific profession”
(Russian Encyclopedia, 1976)
Terminology is a word or combination of words that is used in science, technology, politics, art and it has a specific meaning, denotes precise concepts and names of the above-mentioned scientific areas
(Nguyen Van Tu, 1960:176)
Terms are specialist words used within a scientific field, a professional or any technological field
(Do Huu Chau, 1998)
Terminology is a section of special lexis of a language It consists of fixed words and groups of words which are accurate names of concepts and subjects belonging
to different specialized fields of human being
(Nguyen Thien Giap, 1981)
Terms are words and compound words that are used in specific contexts Not to be confused with "terms" in colloquial usages, the shortened form of technical terms (or terms of art) which are defined within a discipline or specific field
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Term_(language) )
Terminology is a linguistic discipline which studies, analyses and describes a specialized area of the lexicon, i.e terms The aim of terminological studies is standardization of terms so that they are used uniformly Consequently, terminological commission meets regularly, and discusses possible changes in
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terminology, which could reflect rapid progress in the knowledge of science Furthermore, the naming unit “terminology” is often used for vocabulary itself from
a certain scientific or technical field (Machová, 138)
The unique position of terminology among other linguistic studies is connected with the fact that it is based on the knowledge of linguistics as well as different non-linguistic disciplines, the vocabulary of which is studied Since the knowledge of linguistics, mainly lexicology, lexicography and morphology, in connection with the basics of a concrete nonlinguistic science is essential for anyone who studies terminology, it can be characterized as interdisciplinary To put it in another way, the linguist who deals with a concrete area of terminology needs to understand its structure and meaning from the linguistic point of view On top of that, it is also necessary to have at least a basic non-linguistic knowledge of the studied discipline This is why the information about terms and its description are present in dictionaries of terminology as well as in general dictionaries, dictionaries of foreign words and dictionaries of slangs (Machová 138)
Basing on definitions about terminology above, terminology can be considered as
2.11 Main features of terminology
As a special unit in the lexical system of language, terminology has its own distinctive features According to many linguists, terminology should have the following qualities: accurateness, systematism, internationalism, nationalism, popularity
2.11.1 Accurateness
The first quality if terminology is accurateness, that is, it expresses a specific concept or definition concretely and precisely so that it can help to avoid the misunderstanding one concept for another It is necessary for each term in atypical professional scale, denotes only one concept in that system The meaning of a term
is normally the combination of linguistic signals not only the sum of its
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component’s meaning Luu Van Lang (1977) claimed that each linguistic signal poses one basic nuclear meaning and vice versa a concept also has a typical linguistic signal in a concrete situation New Mark (1998) also said that concept-words are notorious for their different meanings in various technologies Therefore, when a term is created in a specific field, it is necessary to take into account its homophone or synonymy which is often seen in linguistics
2.11.2 Systematism
It is the second criterion of a scientific term As a part of a language, eachterm has its own position in the system of concepts and belongs to a terminological system Each term requires its meaning in the relationship with other terms in its system Once separated from its system, its meaning in vague Therefore, systematism is seen as one of the most important features of terminology There is the difference in the viewpoints about the characteristics of terminology among terminologists Some say the typical characteristic of terminology is the systematic formation, whilst others claim that it is the feature of content However, it is the combination of both content and expression form It is impossible to separate a concept from the system
to make a term but it determines its position in the system
2.11.3 Internationalism
As mentioned above, terms are special words expressing common scientific concepts together with the development, cooperation and scientific, technological exchanges among countries throughout the world, terms are internationalized The globalization enables terminology to be used more popularity in different languages
so as to make the international science develop faster As a result of this process, there are exists a number of terms being internationalized in different languages namely medicine (names of illness, medicine, physic, telecom ).Based on the criteria of terminology, each language may require other principles in accordance with its culture Accordingly, terminology in Vietnamese is not an exception, it has its typical characteristics including nationalism and popularity
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2.11.4 Nationalism
It is undeniable that term is special linguistic unit of a language used in specific field should be imbued with Vietnamese culture, and characteristics of Vietnamese language They should be appropriate to Vietnamese people from the lexicology to the grammatical composition
2.11.5 Popularity
It is characteristic of terminology which can bring scientific and technological progress to all people As a component of linguistics, terminology plays an important role in pushing up the development of science, hence it should be comprehensible to all people in its way of reading, writing, speaking and memorizing Therefore, the set of typical features of the term need to be perceived
as a potential which does not have to be fulfilled completely in the case of every term Nevertheless, the more features are present, the more probable is that the word belongs to the specialized area of the lexicon, i.e terminology
2.12 The creation of terminology
According to the International Standardization Organization (ISO, 1988), the following factors of essential consideration in the creation of terminology are: Firstly, terms must be persistently show typical features of the concept they denote
so as to bring about the exact reference In addition, they need to be economical to avoid giving rise to homonymy Besides, terms should be lexically systematic and conform to the phonological and morphological rules of the language Furthermore, terms should follow the common rules of word formation of the language, that is, they should allow composition and derivation where are necessary Lastly, the meaning of term should be context-free Term creation including primary and secondary, is under various influences and subject to different motivation When a new concept appears, primary term formation is created meanwhile secondary term formation appears to name monolingual revision of a given terminology or the term
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It is necessary to distinguish between terminology and ordinary words Baker (1998) claims that “terms differ from words in that they are endowed a word with a special form of reference, namely that they refer to discrete conceptual entities, properties, activities or relations which constitute the knowledge space of a particular subject field”
In addition, meanwhile words function in general reference or a variety of subject fields, terms have special reference within a particular discipline and they keep their lives and meaning s only when they serve the system of knowledge that create them Despite the distinction between term and word mentioned above, the boundary between them is not a clear cut, as many terms become ordinary words when they are closed to daily life and used with high frequency and many words become terms when they are used in specialized field
2.14 Definition of medical terminology
According to Wikipedia “Medical terminology is language used to precisely describe the human body including its components, processes, conditions affecting
it, and procedures performed upon in It is to be used in the field of medicine.”
Notable aspects of medical terminology include the use of Latin terms and regular morphology, with the same suffixes and prefixes use quite consistently for a particular meaning This regular morphology means that once reasonable
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numbers of morphemes are learned it becomes easy to understand very precise terms build up from these morphemes A lot of medical language is anatomical
terminology, concerning itself with the names of various parts of the body
Medical terminology is a special vocabulary used by health care professionals for effective and accurate communication Because it is based mainly
on Greek and Latin words, medical terminology is consistent and uniform throughout the world It is also efficient; although some of the terms are long, they
often reduce an entire phrase to a single word The one word gastroduodenostomy,
for example, stands for “a communication between the stomach and the first part of the small intestine”
According to Sager (1990: 63) terminology is formed by a collection
of terms within a particular domain Cabre (1999: 32) defines terminology as the principal and conceptual base that governs the study of terms, the guidelines used in terminographic work or its methodology as well as the set of terms of a special study and of a specific topic
From the preceding paragraph it is clear that terminology is always linked to a specific subject field Another similar definition of terminology is that of Sager (1990: 2) that terminology is the study and the field of activity concerned with the creation, collection, description, processing, and presentation of terms belonging to a specialized area of usage of one or more languages In this regard terminology work is concerned with the systematic collection, description, processing and presentation of concepts and their designations
For the purpose of this study, the term ‘terminology’ refers to a set of terms related to a specific topic of Health/Medical terminology, as indicated in the DSAC Multilingual Glossary of Medical/Health Terminology
According to English linguistists: Medical terms are fixed words or phrases that express concepts used in the medical field, including terminology for human anatomy (physiology and form), physiology, The terms in the human body, terms
Trang 342.15 Main features of medical terminology
As it has been shown before, nearly the whole English medical terminology is based
on Latin and Greek elements, which often penetrated to English through French In this place it is important to mention that French served as an excellent intermediary between English and Greek-Latin medical terminology from the Middle Ages until the Renaissance when it was substituted by direct loanwords from Latin
Despite the fact that Latin has been influencing the English lexicon from the Saxon times onwards, the impact of Latin on English became the most distinctive as late as the period of the Renaissance, when English medical terminology was formed As Crystal says, most anatomical terms penetrated to English until the end
Anglo-of the 17th century (87) From this point Anglo-of view, the Renaissance and the period shortly after it contributed to the formation of English medical terminology the most There are, however, many medical terms, which were borrowed from Greek-
Latin to English later For instance, gastritis dates back from1806, and cirrhosis
from 1839 (Crystal 87) Moreover, the process of forming new English medical terms on the basis of Greek-Latin models continues until these days This reflects constant progress in medical research
In this place it should be pointed at a double character of medical terminologies, which comes from the period of the Renaissance, and exists until now in English and other European languages On the one hand, Greek-Latin loanwords were taken directly from the classical languages into English Alternatively, they were newly formed according to Greek-Latin models These medical terms stayed, in fact, Latin
as they respected original Latin forms Since they were the same everywhere, they gained the international character On the other hand, the Renaissance also provided
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good conditions for the creation of English medical terminology as it has already been mentioned This led to the creation of synonymous expressions of Greek-Latin
origin on one hand, and Germanic origin on the other hand, e.g clavicula clavicle –
collar bone; ankylosis – joint-stiffening; lordosis – hollow-back (Crystal 2)
2.15.1 Synonymous character of medical terminology
As it has been discussed above, the reason for the synonymous character of English medical terminology lies in the existence of parallel Greek-Latin and Germanic
equivalents such as scapula – shoulder blade In this case, both synonyms are
commonly used in English medical terminology However, sometimes one
expression is preferred to another one For instance, the Latin loanword tuberculosis
is much more frequent in present English medical terminology than consumption of
the same origin Despite the fact that the latter term still exists in English, it has an archaic meaning (Peprník 75) Nevertheless, there is rather a tendency to keep both equivalents as the presence of a large number of synonymous expressions in English medical terminology implies
Now, some negatives of the existence of synonyms in English medical terminology will be considered Firstly, the parallel use of medical terms goes against the basic terminological principle that one concept should be named by one term In this way, the exactness of the term may be disrupted Therefore, most linguists consider synonymy in terminology to be a drawback (Stoyanova) From this point of view, terminology differs from literary and common language, in which synonyms are usually desirable since they are the source of different connotations, and richness of the language This is why synonymy is defined in different ways in these two areas While synonyms in the literary and everyday language often have the same denotative, but different associative meaning, synonyms in terminology should be identical in both meanings, and independent of the context (Stoyanova) In this way,
we talk about so called partial and absolute synonymy
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At this point it is important to note that parallel terms which differ only in their
origin are often regarded as absolute synonyms (see the example scapula – shoulder
blade).However, in English medical terminology and terminology in general this
statement is questionable since synonyms of Greek-Latin origin usually have different stylistic character in comparison to their domestic equivalents For instance, while loanwords of classical origin usually occur in specialized English texts, home terms have more general meaning This is why the existence of total synonymy is often denied in linguistics
As far as the history of synonymy in medical terminology is concerned, it has a long tradition, and is as old as the science of medicine The presence of synonyms in this field is connected with unsolved questions in medicine and its continuous development
In Greek-Latin medical terminology, the first synonyms come from the ancient times, when parallel Greek-Latin medical terms existed In the Renaissance, the tendency to use apair of Greek-Latin synonyms even became stronger as the terms
such as pharmacon (from Greek θάρμακον) – medicamentum; omoplata (from
Greek ὠμοπλάηη) – scapula imply (Marcovecchio 659, 601)
Similarly, there has been growth in synonymy in English medical terminology since its formation in the Renaissance However, the period of Rationalism brought the tendency to make medical terminology more systematic This also included the effort to reduce the number of synonymous pairs/triplets in English medical
terminology which differed only in spelling (e.g Greek-Latin thrombopathia –
thrombopathy with the English ending) or in suffixes with the same meaning (e.g embolia – emblus – embolism)
Despite this effort, the number of synonyms was still increasing as it also happens
in present English medical terminology In comparison to the past, there is, however, the tendency to substitute Greek-Latin medical terms not only by their
anglicised forms, but also by their Germanic equivalents (e.g erythrocyte – red
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blood cell; coagulation – blood clotting) (Dţuganová, “A brief outline” 226) As a
result, adapted terms of Greek-Latin origin are often used next to their Anglo-Saxon synonyms
Stoyanova’s investigation of synonyms in the field of traumatology also gives the evidence of the high frequency of synonymy in English medical terminology It is surprising that as much as 44 % of the terms included 7 and more synonyms, 19 % occurred in synonymous pairs, 10 % were 4 and 5-member synonyms, 9 % consisted of 6 synonymous terms, and 8 % had 3-member synonyms The existence
of a large number of synonyms in medical terminology is also emphasized by Manuila, who claims that they form a quarter to half of the whole medical terminology (qtd in Šimon, “O historickom výskume” 50)
2.15.2 Eponyms in medical terminology
Another source of synonymy in English medical terminology, mainly in clinical praxis, is so called eponymy It is based on the use of a proper name for the denotation of a newly discovered disease, symptom, diagnostic method or an
anatomical structure For example, Grierson-Gopalan syndrome “burning feet syndrome” is also called Gorlin´ssyndrome, and Gorlin-Holt syndrom (Stoyanova)
It is usually formed on the basis of the discoverer´s name or the person who
described a new concept as the first one (Downsyndrome; Hippocratic face) However, the motivation can also be different For instance, Achilles tendon is
called after the legendary fighter in Homer´s Iliad, who was vulnerable only on his heel (Řešetka, “K otázce uţívání eponym” 720)
In present medical terminology, there is a tendency to avoid eponyms since they name concepts only with the use of one type of relation, and do not include significant features of different concepts in their names Yet, same eponyms are so deeply rooted that it is nearly impossible to remove them from medical terminology
Trang 38basic parts of the human body such as arm, chin, finger, foot, gut, hair, head, hip,
liver, mouth and wrist Similarly, there are only few anatomical expressions of the
Scandinavian origin in English, e.g leg, kidney, skin and scull As far as English
clinical terms is concerned, hardly any Anglo-Saxon or Scandinavian word can be found there (Andrews, qtd in Dţuganová, “Abrief outline” 224) Since the majority
of both English anatomical and clinical terms are of Greek-Latin origin, their formation principles will differ from the ones which are applied in everyday English
word-2.15.4 Word-formation principles of medical terminology of Greek-Latin origin
Greek-Latin origin of many English medical terms implies that classical loan words have been the main source of English medical terminology For instance, the simple
(opaque) naming units like femur, humerus, occiput, placenta, sinus, thorax and pus
were directly takento English from Greek/Latin
Moreover, Greek-Latin borrowings to English include derived expressions (e.g
encephalitis - a Greek suffix; dialysis - a Greek prefix) as well as compound
lexemes (e.g.claustrophobia, leucaemia) While both Greek and Latin affixes are
present in derived words, Greek roots are much more suitable for the formation of compound terms, which often relate to pathological changes In addition, there are also many derivational compounds of Greek-Latin origin in English medical terminology They are formed by the means of composition and derivational affixes
(e.g cerebrospinal, from Latin cerebrospinalis)
Furthermore, the parallel development of Greek-Latin terminology is also the reason for the existence of many hybrid medical terms in English In linguistics, the
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term hybrid is used for the naming unit which comprises word-formation elements (prefixes, suffixes, roots)from different languages For instance, the derived term
appendicitis has a hybrid character since it comes from the Latin appendix and
Greek -itis Similarly, the compound word arteriosclerosis has the origin from these two languages (Latin arteria, Greek ζκληρός, and Greek suffix -osis) Such hybrid
Greek-Latin compound words are often used as the model for the formation of new
hybrids, which can even include an English root (e.g fibrofatty, heartometer,
microneedle, macrotooth) (Řešetka, “Několik poznámek” 117)
2.15.5 Adaptation of medical terms of Greek-Latin origin in medical
terminology
Greek-Latin medical loanwords behave in different ways in English Some of them are taken directly to English without any change in spelling, so that the original Greek-Latin terms conserve their written form In such cases, only their
pronunciation is adapted to English (e.g pus /pʌ s/, humerus /ˈhju:mərəs/)
Nevertheless, most borrowings adapt to English to a larger extent Sometimes, the spelling of the loanword is changed For example, diphthongs and consonant groups are usually simplified in American English, but kept in British English (Latin
caecum >American-English cecum x British-English caecum; similarly rhaphe > raphe)
Alternatively, a Latin suffix or ending is substituted by its anglicised form
(albinismus>albinism; luxatio >luxation; obesitas >obesity) or by an English ending (mandibula >mandible; pulsus >pulse; stomatologia >stomatology; pleuritis
>pleurisy) This kind of adaptation is probably the most frequent It is, however,
also possible to find some examples of Greek-Latin medical terms which
significantly changed their form in English (e.g.paralysis >palsy; rhachitis
>rickets)
To sum up, most medical terms of Greek-Latin origin undergo phonetic morphological adaptation to English In this way, the loanwords are domesticated,
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so that they become the source for the formation of other new words with the same
Greek-Latin root, but a domestic affix (e.g English aggressiveness from aggressive
< Latin aggressivus)
2.16 English for specific purpose
There is a great number of definitions of ESP because people have given different emphases to the variety of elements One may hold that the age of the learners is a main factor, but another agues that the purpose of the learners the most important one Thus, the definition of ESP may be grouped into three categories focusing on age, time, and purpose
The first element is the time available Fitzijohn Robinson (1980;9) notes that: “The very concept of “Special purpose” implies that foreign language study is a subsidiary contribution to another, main interest, and that there will normally be pressure to achieve the required level of linguistics competence in the minimum of time”
The second important factor is that of age Most learners of ESP are adults or near adults This is obvious when English for Occupational Purposes is considered This type of ESP is for people who are in jobs or about to take up employment “The number of people wanting to learn English for Specific Purposes
is spiralling By and large these people have been students in tertiary education, and adults” Robinson (1980;9)
The third factor is the learner’s purposes This is the most important element of ESP, so Brumfit (1997;71) states that
“First, it is clear that an ESP course is directly concerned with the purposes for which learners need English, purposes which are usually expressed in functional terms ESP thus fits firmly within the general movement towards “communicative” teaching of the last decade or so”
This definition implies two things: (1) the broad meaning of the terms
“purposes”, and (2) the method of teaching/ learning for these purposes