Linguistic features of pharmaceutical terms in english and their vietnamese equivalents

THESIS LINGUISTIC FEATURES OF PHARMACEUTICAL TERMS IN ENGLISH AND THEIR VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS ĐẶC ĐIỂM NGÔN NGỮ CỦA THUẬT NGỮ TIẾNG ANH CHUYÊN NGÀNH DƯỢC VÀ NHỮNG TƯƠNG ĐƯƠNG TRONG T

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

M.A THESIS

LINGUISTIC FEATURES OF PHARMACEUTICAL TERMS IN ENGLISH AND THEIR VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS

(ĐẶC ĐIỂM NGÔN NGỮ CỦA THUẬT NGỮ TIẾNG ANH

CHUYÊN NGÀNH DƯỢC VÀ NHỮNG TƯƠNG ĐƯƠNG TRONG TIẾNG VIỆT)

NGUYEN THI MAI LUONG

Field: English Language Code: 60220201

Hanoi, 2017

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

M.A THESIS

LINGUISTIC FEATURES OF PHARMACEUTICAL TERMS IN ENGLISH AND THEIR VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS

(ĐẶC ĐIỂM NGÔN NGỮ CỦA THUẬT NGỮ TIẾNG ANH

CHUYÊN NGÀNH DƯỢC VÀ NHỮNG TƯƠNG ĐƯƠNG TRONG TIẾNG VIỆT)

NGUYEN THI MAI LUONG

Field: English Language Code: 60220201

Supervisor: Tran Thi Thu Hien, Ph.D

Hanoi, 2017

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY

I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled

LINGUISTIC FEATURES OF PHARMACEUTICAL TERMS IN ENGLISH AND THEIR VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS (ĐẶC ĐIỂM NGÔN

NGỮ CỦA THUẬT NGỮ TIẾNG ANH CHUYÊN NGÀNH DƯỢC VÀ NHỮNG

TƯƠNG ĐƯƠNG TRONG TIẾNG VIỆT) 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

A special word of thanks goes to all the lectures of the M.A course at Hanoi Open University for providing me foundation knowledge through their invaluable lessons

Last but not least I am greatly indebted to my family, my friends for the sacrifice they have devoted to the fulfillment of this academic work

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ABSTRACT

The writer of the study attempts to figure out features of English pharmaceutical in terms of morphology and semantics After data are collected from the chosen materials, the writer uses descriptive method to describe and analyze these data before classifying them into groups of features The write also conducts a qualitative research as a description of the data from the source Data analysis techniques used are collecting, analyzing and classifying Linguistic features are presented through ways of creating terms and types of English pharmaceutical terms In terms of semantics, collected terms are divided into six main groups according to their meanings The study will be conducted through four steps: first, data are collected from the two main chosen materials and the other reference; the next, the data are analyzed qualitatively quantitatively to figure out the linguistics features of English pharmaceutical terms, and then the results are classified and presented in forms of tables; finally, the write also finds out their Vietnamese equivalents and common errors by learners of English when using pharmaceutical terms The results of the study help to contribute suggestion to approaching the teaching and learning English pharmaceutical terms basing on linguistics aspects

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 3.1: The borrowing pharmaceutical terms 23

Table 3.2: The prefixes in pharmaceutical terms in English and Vietnamese 24

Table 3.3: Noun and adjective suffixes in pharmaceutical terms in English 25

Table 3.4: Suffixes describe procedures used in patient care 26

Table 3.5: The statistics of prefixes and suffixes in English pharmaceutical terms 27

Table 3.6: Types of compounding and number of terms for each type 28

Table 3.7: Types of clipping and their proportion 30

Table 3.8: The statistic about initialism and acronym among English pharmaceutical terms 31

Table 3.9: Terminologisation terms 32

Table 3.10: Summary of ways of creating English pharmaceutical terms 33

Table 3.11: Summary of ways of creating Vietnamese pharmaceutical terms 33

Table 3.12: Part of speech and the proportion of one-element terms 35

Table 3.13: The proportion of two-element terms 35

Table 3.14: The proportion of three-element terms 36

Table 3.15: The proportion of four-element terms 36

Table 3.16: Types of English pharmaceutical terms 36

Table 3.17: Types of Vietnamese pharmaceutical terms 37

Table 3.18: The proportion of groups of English pharmaceutical terms in terms of semantic features 48

Table 3.19: The proportion of groups of Vietnamese pharmaceutical terms in terms of semantic features 48

Table 4.1: The proportion of errors made by students at Thai Nguyen Medical College in using English pharmaceutical terms 55

Table 4.2: The proportion of errors in matching each term with its correct definition 56

Table 4.3: The proportion of errors in word formation 57

Table 4.4: The proportion of errors in finding mistake and correct it 58

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Certificate of originality i

Acknowledgements ii

Abstract .iii

List of abbreviations iv

List of tables v

Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale 1

1.2 Aims and objectives of the study 2

1.3 Research questions 2

1.4 Methods of the study 2

1.5 Scope of the study 3

1.6 Significance of the study 3

1.7 Design of the study 4

Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Previous studies 5

2.2 Terms and terminology 7

2.2.1 Definitions and distinction 7

2.2.1.1 Definition of terms in English and Vietnamese 7

2.2.1.2 Definition of terminology in English 8

2.2.1.3 Distinction between terms and terminology 8

2.2.1.4 Distinction between terms and words 9

2.2.2 Characteristics of terms in English and Vietnamese 10

2.2.2.1 Accuracy 10

2.2.2.2 Systemization 11

2.2.2.3 Internationality 12

2.3 Pharmaceutical terms 13

2.3.1 Definition and origins 13

2.3.2 Linguistic features of pharmaceutical terms 14

2.3.2.1 Lexical features of pharmaceutical terms 16

2.3.2.2 Morphological features of pharmaceutical terms 17

2.3.2.3 Affixation in Vietnamese 18

2.3.2.4 Semantic features of pharmaceutical terms 20

2.4 Summary 21

Chapter 3 LINGUISTIC FEATURES OF PHARMACEUTICAL TERMS IN ENGLISH AND THEIR VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS 3.1 Lexical features of pharmaceutical terms in English and Vietnamese 22

3.1.1 Borrowing 22

3.1.2 Adding 23

3.1.2.1 Prefixes 23

3.1.2.2 Suffixes 25

3.1.3 Compounding 28

3.1.4 Shortening 29

3.1.4.1 Clipping 29

3.1.4.2 Abbreviation 30

3.1.5 Changing general meaning 31

3.1.6 Elements of pharmaceutical terms 34

3.1.6.1 One-element terms 34

3.1.6.2 Two-elements terms 35

3.1.6.3 Three-element terms 35

3.1.6.4 Four-element terms 36

3.2 In terms of morphological features 37

3.3 Semantic features of pharmaceutical terms in English and Vietnamese 38

3.3.1 Drug terms 38

3.3.1.1 Forms of drug terms 38

3.3.1.2 Modern drug terms 39

3.3.1.2.1 Generic and Brand Name Drugs terms 39

3.3.1.2.2 Antibiotic terms 41

3.3.1.2.3 Vitamin and mineral terms 42

3.3.1.3 Traditional medicine terms (herbal medicine) 44

3.3.2 Pharmacognosy terms 44

3.3.3 Prescription terms 45

3.3.4 Equipment terms 46

3.4 In terms of semantic features 49

3.5 Summary 49

Chapter 4 COMMON ERRORS MADE BY LEARNERS OF ENGLISH IN USING PHARMACEUTICAL TERMS AND SOLUTIONS 4.1 Setting 50

4.2 The subjects 50

4.3 Test 51

4.3.1 Sample exercises of English pharmaceutical terms 52

4.3.1.1 Multiple choices 52

4.3.1.2 Gap-filling 52

4.3.1.3 Matching 53

4.3.1.4 Mistake and finding and correction 53

4.3.1.5 Reading comprehension 53

4.3.1.6 Word formation 53

4.3.1.7 Translation 53

4.3.2 Procedure and preliminary results 54

4.3.2.1 Procedure 54

4.3.2.2 Preliminary results 54

4.4 Common errors made by pharmacy students at Thai Nguyen Medical College in learning pharmaceutical terms 58

4.4.1 Errors in prefixes and suffixes terms 58

4.4.2 Errors in borrowing terms 59

4.4.3 Errors in changing general meaning (Terminologisation) 59

4.4.4 Errors in misunderstanding abbreviated terms 59

4.4.5 Pharmacology misinterpretation 60

4.4.6 Errors in mispresenting word order 61

4.5 Causes of committing errors 61

4.6 Suggestions to overcome 62

4.6.1 Suggestions for teaching English pharmaceutical terms 62

4.6.2 Suggestions for learning English pharmaceutical terms 64

4.7 Summary 66

Chapter 5: CONCLUSION

5.1 Concluding remarks 67 5.2 Limitations of the study 68 5.3 Recommendations for further study 68 REFERENCES

APPENDICES

to pharmaceutical terms In the light of linguistic features, morphological features, and word formation and semantic of pharmaceutical terms among major aspects studied Basing on the theory of these two terms, the linguistic features in pharmaceutical terms will be analyzed In the study, the frequency of occurrence of linguistic features will be explored and some noticeable findings will be drawn Practically, medicines are an emerging field in pharmacy science due to their increasing popularity with health-conscious consumers With its easy use, ability to support good health with treatment disease and improve the take care the health, medication is winning the hoping of more and more patients As a matter of fact, medications seem to be sort of new to a large number of Vietnamese people There exist different ideas, even new findings on this new kind of field In the view of the student of English linguistics, the author sees that studying English for pharmacy is not at ease There has been an increase in the amount of studies on English for pharmacy; many of which have considerable contribution to the improvement of medicine field of science and explored the terms used in metaphor, translation However, studies on linguistics features of English pharmaceutical terms seem excessively rare, and thus have not fulfilled the need of this area As a matter of fact, not only pharmaceutical students but pharmacists, health workers working in the field of medicine have difficulty in thoroughly understanding English pharmaceutical terms The meaning of a pharmaceutical term can be inferred from the direct meaning of the word, but in some cases, this meaning should be based on other features of the word

In context of Thai Nguyen medical college, No2 students are supposed to learn technical pharmacy English in the second semester of the course Being a teacher of English here, the researcher finds that the situation may result from not only the method of approaching the subject, complication of technical pharmacy English itself, but the inappropriate materials used Therefore, a study on linguistics

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features of English pharmaceutical and their Vietnamese equivalents is expected to have a small contribution on better the situation

1.2 Aims and objectives of the study

This study aims at investigating linguistic features of English pharmaceutical terms and their Vietnamese equivalents

To help Vietnamese learners, academics and non-academics, have tools to approach pharmaceutical terms To realize the above aim, this paper works for three following objectives:

- To identify typical linguistic features of English and Vietnamese pharmaceutical terms

- To make a comparison between the linguistic features of pharmaceutical terms in English and their Vietnamese equivalents

- To provide suggestions to avoid errors made by Vietnamese learners of English in using pharmaceutical terms

1.3 Research questions

The study is carried out to find out the answers to the following questions: (1) What are typical features of English and Vietnamese pharmaceutical terms? (2) How are English and Vietnamese pharmaceutical terms similarity and difference?

(3) What are possible suggestions for overcoming errors in using pharmaceutical terms?

1.4 Methods of the study

So as to acquire the aims and objectives of the research, the writer uses the descriptive, method to carry out the study This method is suitable for the study because it is used to describe characteristics features, the main procedure throughout the study The writer also conducts a qualitative research as an analysis

of the document collected In this one, the documentary analysis focused on the list

of terms from the chosen materials The major data collection technique is collecting the pharmaceutical terms in the materials Data analysis techniques used are collecting, analyzing and classifying The study will be conducted through the following steps:

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First, data are collected from two main chosen materials and other reference; after that the data are analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively to figure out the linguistic features of pharmaceutical terms

Second, the result are classified and presented in forms of tables

Finally, the comparative analysis method is used to analyze the linguistic features of pharmaceutical in English and their Vietnamese equivalents, hence suggesting some implications for mastering these particular terms

1.5 Scope of the study

Because of the limitation of resource and conditions, this study only focuses

on linguistic features of pharmaceutical terms in English The data includes 324

English pharmaceutical terms collected from two materials: English in

Pharmacy, Publisher, Esculapio in 2008, a book written by Luisa Benigni, and

Science and Technics Publishing House in 2014 by Lê Văn Truyền, 110 Vietnamese pharmaceutical terms collected from Dược Thư Quốc Gia Việt Nam - Vietnam National Drug Formulary (Nhà xuất bản Y học – 2012) It is necessary to note that the number of terms chosen is not all the terms, but the most frequently used in the materials

1.6 Significance of the study

This research is conducted to some extent to contribute to theoretical foundation of terminology, in terms of systemizing general theories as well as theory of linguistic features of pharmaceutical terms in English and their Vietnamese equivalents

In practice, the findings can be used as a referential material in teaching and learning English pharmaceutical terms at Thai Nguyen Medical College Compilers also find this paper useful when they design materials related to the English pharmaceutical terms

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1.7 Design of the study

The thesis starts out with Introduction chapter where rationale, aims and objectives, research questions, methods, scope, significance, and design of the study are presented

The literature review chapter is the place to summarize the results of the researchers who worked on the problem, and give an overview on pharmaceutical terms

The Findings and Discussions chapter is the part analyzing data and interpreting the results, as well as stating some pedagogical implications of the findings

The Application of the research findings chapter is the part common errors by learners of English in using pharmaceutical terms and solutions

The last chapter is Conclusion which summarizes the issue and results of the

study, as well as offers some recommendations for the further study

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Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Previous studies

* Previous studies oversea

No sooner did terminology acquire a scientific orientation than it was recognized acquire a scientific orientation than it was recognized 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 Wüster, who originally came from the field of engineering and is seen as the founder of the founder of the general theory of terminology He talked about terminology in the

book Introduction to the general theory of terminology and terminology

side was occupied by systematized concepts of a specific subject area, whereas the other belonged to the designations However, Wüster’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 which can be identified as having three different dimensions i.e the cognitive, the linguistic, and the communicate dimensions The communicate dimensions of the theory of terminology can be detected mainly in the linguistic mechanisms that set that patterns for term formation and term forms The book provided the key to methods of terminology 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 terminology processing as part of their profession

Rey (1995) indicated that the cognitive dimension of terminology resulted from the cognitive nature of its own subject of study, and was thus not a particularity of its theory What was interesting about terminology was that it succeeded in linking the cognitive dimension with social needs via linguistic forms; thus it contributed to the optimization of the communication between experts and mediator who transfer knowledge, such as terminologists, translators, etc, and the general public

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Hutcheson and Michaud (1995) concerned about another sense of terms that

“the language discipline dedicated to the scientific study of concepts and terms used

in specialized language” Beside, Rojatti and Jones (2000:16) indicated that specialized language is used by subjected- matter specialist to simplify ambiguous communication in a particular field of knowledge

Packeiser (2009) presents the general theory of terminology, the nature of concepts, conceptual relations, the relationship between terms and concepts The sphere of concepts is seen as independent from the sphere of terms

* Previous studies in Vietnam

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 terms not only indicate scientific concepts but name certain scientific phenomena Besides, he stressed that one characteristic 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

In her PhD thesis, Nguyễn Thị Bích Hà (2000:1) clarified the constructional features of trade terms by analyzing and contrasting these terms in Japanese and Vietnamese This thesis discussed specifically about identification characteristics in terms of ways of creation and semantic field of the trade terms

Studying and compared the original and the translated versions by different translators, in her M.A thesis, Vũ Thị Thanh Yến (2005: 7), has come up with an idea of making an investigation into how health insurance terms in the US health insurance plans are currently dealt with

Studying on terms of intellectual property laws, Mai Thị Loan (2015) investigated the morphological and semantic features of these terms in English She also proposed equivalence relationship between terms of intellectual property laws and their Vietnamese equivalents

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

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2.2 Terms and terminology

2.2.1 Definitions and distinction

2.2.1.1 Definition of terms in English and Vietnamese

According to Oxford Advanced Learner Dictionary (2011:475), a term is “a

word or phrase used to describe a thing or to express a concept, especially in a

particular kind of language of branch of study”

Dubuc (1997:09) claimed that a term (or a terminology unit) is the name or

designation of a concept in a particular subject field In specialized languages, a

term is made of a singer word or words combination and is usually associated with

the same conventional definition used by speakers of given language A term can be

a word, an expression, a symbol, a mathematical or chemical formula, a scientific

name in Latin or an acronym

Valeontis and Mantzari (2001:4) claimed that terms are the linguistic representation of concepts However, contrary to the situation prevailing in general

language, where the arbitrariness of the linguistic sign is fully acceptable, special

languages endeavor to make the process of designation systematic This process

based on certain specified linguistic rules, so that terms reflect the concept

characteristics they refer to as precisely as possible

According to Muñoz (2011:4), a term should be understood as a specialized

word in relation to its meaning and the field in which it is used It is considered in

that way when used in a certain context in which it takes the function of a term

Meanwhile, Đỗ Hữu Châu (1981: 221) considered terms as specialized words

used within a specific field, a profession or any technological field Identifying

technical terms, he said: “Scientific and technical terminology consists of lexical

units used to denote phenomenal objects, activities, etc.in industrial technologies

and natural or social sciences”

Đái Xuân Ninh et al in Linguistics: Tendency – Field – Concept (1986: 64)

claimed that terms are words or phrases denoting accurately a concept of a certain

specialized science They also stated that a term belongs to the general lexical

system of a language, but it only exits in a particular terminology systems, or in

other words it can only be used in a certain specialized language system

Nguyễn Thiện Giáp (1999:270) proposed a more informative perspective on

terms is understood as special linguistic units of language They include single or

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complex units that provide precise definitions and objectives belonging to particular scientific area

According to Hoàng Văn Hành (2010), defines term in Vietnamese is a word

or a group of words used to denote a systematic definition of the concepts of a particular discipline The whole system of terminology of the sciences completes the terminology of language

In short, although the authors expressed different views about terms, they still share the common points The above definitions raised by Dubuc may be the most concise and compact one that covers the common points among the linguistics’ definitions

2.2.1.2 Definition of terminology in English

Oxford Advanced Learner Dictionary (2011:476) defines terminology as “a set of technical words or expressions used in a particular subject”

According to Wüster (1979) terminology has a two-fold meaning:

a) It is the discipline concerned with the principles and methods governing the study of concepts and their designations (terms, names, symbols) in any subject field, and the job of collecting, processing, and managing relevant data

b) The set of terms belonging to the special language of an individual subject field Accordingly, the theory of terminology can be identified as having three different dimensions: the cognitive, the linguistic, and the communicative dimensions (Sager, 1990:4) The linguistic dimension of the theory of terminology can be detected mainly in the linguistic mechanisms Under modern approaches, terminologists mainly concern about another sense of terminology that is the language discipline It dedicated to the scientific study of the concepts and terms used in specialized languages (Hucheeson & Michaud), 1995:37)

It can be seen that the mentioned perceptions mainly focus on terminology in the theory of linguistic dimension Although these perceptions are various, they share common aspects In this study, the writer prioritizes the perception that terminology is the study of terms

2.2.1.3 Distinction between terms and terminology

A question will then arise thereby: Do the word “term” and terminology” mean the same thing? It is necessary to bring these questions to light within the limited scope of the study Đỗ Hữu Châu (1981:221) stated that “Unlike ordinary words, terms have referential meaning which completely coincide with the objects,

2.2.1.4 Distinction between terms and words

Usually words are assigned to the vocabulary of general language while terms form the vocabulary of special languages “The items which are characterized

by special reference within a discipline are the terms of that discipline, and collectively they from its terminology; those which function in general reference over a variety of sublanguage are simply called words” (Sager ET al.1990:19)

It is worth mentioning Baker’s opinion as he considered terms in relation with words He suggested “Terms are endowed with a special form of reference, namely that refer to discrete conceptual entities, properties, activities or relations which constitute the knowledge space of a particular subject field” (1998:56) According to Gutiérrez Rodilla (1998: 88-94), a word was a meaningful element in a language A term, on the other hand, was a word but has a particular meaning a situation Hence, these two cannot be used interchangeably The relationship between a word and a term can simply be understood in the following manner All terms are words, but not all words are terms This highlights that words, but not all words are items This highlights that words have a general meaning, which applies to our day to day understanding However, a term acquires

a special meaning in a special situation

From a linguistic point of view, a word is a unit characterized by having a phonetic from, a simple or complex morphological structure, grammatical features, and a meaning that describes the class to which a specific object belongs (Cabré, 1999:35)

Concerning the basic units, (Cabré, 1999:80) pointed out terms, like words in the general language lexicon, are distinctive and meaningful signs which occur in special language discourse A word was a unit described by a set of systematic linguistic characteristics that had the property of referring to an element in reality A term on the other hand, was a unit with similar linguistic characteristics used in a special domain If a term presented the same linguistic characteristics as a word, the

consequence was that the rules of phonetics, morphology as well, and that they must form a part of the terminology theory as terms are the basic unit of terminology The term or terminology unit was the meaning unit made up of one single word or several words and represented a concept in a univocal way on a special semantic field (Muñoz, 2011:4) The border line between word and term is draw by the use of the lexical unit in a specialized field of knowledge with a specialized meaning or not That is why a certain level of specialized knowledge is needed to

recognize a term (we will only know that mouse is term if we know the computing

terminology) The characteristics of a text – communicative purpose, subject, specialization grade - are also helpful to recognize the presence of terms

In brief, terms and words constitute the general class of lexical items, and the boundary between them is not always clear 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 frequently in a specialized field In order to establish the limit between term and word, it is important to know the characteristics of terms in a specialized language

2.2.2 Characteristics of terms in English and Vietnamese

Lotte (1978) and Dafy Cribbon (1999) agreed that features of terms should be accuracy, systematical, conciseness, nationality and popularity Đỗ Hữu Châu (1981) assumed three basic features of terms, namely accuracy, systematical and internationality Lưu Văn Lang (1977:2) added that terms are to be “systematical, linguistically native, accurate, concise, popular and of great utility” Basing on the agreement among linguists about standardizing scientific terms, the writer assumes

that standards of terms include accuracy, systemization and internationality

Hereafter, the writer attempts to emphasize three main characteristics which are ranked in the order of importance

2.2.2.1 Accuracy

According to Gutiérrez Rodilla (1998:88), terms have to submit three conditions to be really precise: First, its meaning has to be previously demitted Second, this meaning has to be monogenic and there has not to be any synonym Third, the relation established among the terms of a system has to be the same as the one among the concepts If a term is precise, then its communicative dimension is unchanging, which means, its meaning does not depend on the context, the

discourse in which it is inserted nor the sender of the message nor any other factors

of a communicative event This does happen in the standard communication

Accuracy is considered to be the most significant feature of terms A term is used to denote a defined perception belong to the concept system of a particular science; thus, it must be accurate and clear to help avoid confusion and misunderstanding (Nguyễn Thiện Giáp, 2002:217) If a term is of absolute accuracy, people never mistake one concept for another One word has become a term, it no longer has connotation, emotional meaning; it also loses its polysemy, synonym, and antonym Nguyễn Văn Tú (1968: 114) firm asserted that one characteristic of term is that a term serves in a particular science with its only one meaning and no emotional aspects

In short, a term needs to be accurate and clear because it basically reflects an exact concept of a science Terminology necessarily works on the principle that only one term for it, and one term indicate only one concept This relationship is called the one-to-one equivalence between a concept and a term

2.2.2.2 Systemization

This characteristic of terms is revealed in its definition that it is a lexical unit used to name or designate a specific concept of a particular field that means it only exists in a particular terminology system “The value of a term loses when it is recognized and examined outside the system it belongs to and without its relationship with other terms in the same system” (Nguyễn Thiện Giáp, 2002:272) Concerning this issues, Đỗ Hữu Châu (1981:222) affirmed that a term, together with its concept constitute its content The systematic characteristic in terms of semantics is determined by the systematic characteristic in terms of semantics is determined by the systematic characteristics of the object itself and by the concept in this particular subject field It is the systematicity that can help people to understand the concept with ease

A system of terms not only meets general requirements but also satisfy particular ones posed by certain specialized it reflects As a matter of fact, each field

of science has its own systems of solid and finite concept expressed by its own terms The semantic value of a term is determined by its relation to others in the same field Therefore, once isolated, the term may have no or ambiguous meaning However, there exist homophones and synonyms among term systems of different

fields The systematicity also requires a term itself to be systematic in its own meaning To this end, terms are usually short in form

Any field of sciences has its own limited system of concepts, which are named

by s system of terms Therefore, each item has its own position in the system of concepts and belongs to a terminological system The value of each term is determined by its relationships with other terms in the same system As a result, a term loses its value when isolated form its system It has to be a dependent member

of its system

2.2.2.3 Internationality

Another property of terminology is internationality which is shown in both form and meaning With regard to form it is of great interest to discover that many terms are entirely borrowed form one language to another In terms of meaning, terminology figures out common scientific concepts recognized and equally understood by speakers of different cultures Terms are used internationally because they are special words expressing common scientific concept to people of different languages (In PhD thesis of Nguyễn Thị Bích Hà, 2000)

Nguyễn Thiện Giáp (2001:274) asserts that “international characteristic of terms is a very important feature that helps distinguish terms form other linguistic units” The factors that constitute terms in different languages are relatively unified Thus, it is essential to internationalize scientific terms among language in order to enhance the science development, economy integration and culture exchange Accordingly, internationality is expressed through form and meaning, in which form is more noticeable It is useful to agree on terms to be used among language in order to push up the development of science The international links in science result in a number of terms presented in many different languages

In general terms in Vietnamese, it is possible to see the terminology in Vietnamese, as in other developed languages, formed by three basic paths: (1) common word terminology; (2) terms created correspondingly to foreign terms by means of simulation and (3) borrowed terms from foreign languages often

international terms (in Sự hình thành và phát triển ngôn ngữ – Hoàng Văn Hành)

In the final analysis, the conference on terminology held in Ha Noi, 1967 by the State Committee of Science came to a unanimous conclusion that the Vietnamese terminology is to be:

(1) Systematical (2) linguistically native (3) Accurate (4) Concise (5) Popular and

of great utility (comprehensible, memorable, easy to speak, write and edit)

Generally speaking, Vietnamese terminology bears the same features to English ones It expresses exactly one concept; rarely has synonyms or polysemy; and is popular among its users

In terms of the origin of Vietnamese terminology, Vietnamese terminology is made up of four components namely Pure-Vietnamese words, Sino-Vietnamese words and Indo-European words From characteristics of terms in English and Vietnamese above, there are the same characteristics

2.3 Pharmaceutical terms

2.3.1 Definition and origins

Pharmacy is the generic name for a medical profession that specializes in the manufacture, manufacture of medicines (pharmaceuticals) as well as medical examination and treatment and distribution of medicines

The term in many European languages comes from Greek: φάρµακον (pharmakon), meaning "medicine" or "medicine" (the earliest form of this word is Greek Mycenaean pa-ma-ko) Then the term was used since the 17th century

Davies (1985: 13) defines medical terminology as “the study of words used to communicate facts and ideas particular to medicine; it is chiefly concerned with the present use and meaning of such words.” Medical terms refer to words, compounds, abbreviations and acronyms that are related to medicine

The 21st century pharmaceutical and biotech sector has come a long way from its roots in 19th century pharmacy – Robin Walsh looks at its evolution over the centuries The roots of the pharmaceutical industry lie back with the apothecaries and pharmacies that offered traditional remedies as far back as the middle ages, offering a hit-and-miss range of treatments based on centuries of folk knowledge But the industry as we understand it today really has its origins in the second half of the 19th century The history of pharmacy as an independent science dates back to the first third of the 19th century

According to the World Health Organization WHO general pharmaceutical is known as medicine drug called consist of two basic components, western pharmaceuticals and Traditional Medicine Drugs must preserve safely, effectively and of well-quality specified shelf and using proper doses

Drugs are products for human used for the prevention and treatment of disease, reduce symptoms, diagnosis and adjust the physiological functions of the body A finished product is a form of drug through all stages of production to circulation, distribution and use Drug materials as active substance (active ingredients) or inactive (solvents, excipients) involved in the composition of the product in the production process

The meaning of pharmaceutical has not completed yet with many definitions but this is most popular of WHO definition of pharmaceutical

2.3.2 Linguistic features of pharmaceutical terms

Linguistic aspects of terms formation are of major interest to not only terminologists and subject field specialists, but also to translators, interpreter and technical writers Below term formation will be approached through perspectives of two famous authors

Sager (1997) defined term formation as process of naming the concept required by a particular domain He added that term formation differs from general words formation “by its greater awareness of pre-existing patterns and models and its social responsibility for facilitating communication and the transmission of knowledge” By means of the repeated act of creating new terms and of regulating existing terminology, a certain consistency of designation is achieved Terms are on the whole less arbitrary and more consciously motivated and transparent than general words These reflections make evident that the wide-spread opinion that special vocabulary is mostly constituted by Latin, Greek, and not only created by importing foreign vocabulary, but new terms are also by employing others methods The major distinction made in term formation is primary versus secondary term formation (Sager 1997:27-28) Primary term formation is the process of terminology creation that accompanies concept formation as a result of any kind of innovation Thus, primary term formation takes place in a scientific environment, and there is no direct linguistic precedent of the new term for an existing concept This occurs when a designation is changed as the result of terminology revision Secondary term formation is also involved when concepts are transferred among linguistic communities

The process of primary and secondary term formation is carried out by three different methods, arranged in this way by Sager (1990: 71-80 and 1997: 28-40): a) the use of existing resources i.e secondary term formation; b) the modification is

existing resources i.e secondary term formation; and c) the creation of new linguistic entities i.e primary term formation These three methods are employed in general word formation as well However, while in general language the creation of new words is a spontaneous process, in terminology the formation of new terms is always motivated (Reinhardt et al 1992:24)

According to Delahunty and Garvey (2004:89), the translation of an existing term, an additional dimension is suggested for consideration, namely, the existence

of one or more conceptual systems From this conceptual point of view, we may differentiate two cases in the translation of terms: term-transfer into another language within the same conceptual system (intra-conceptual term-transfer) In the first case, although terms have to be translated, the process is carried out within the same conceptual systems plays a significant role

Meanwhile, Dubuc (1997:131) asserted that “terms can be created by assigning new meanings to existing terms or by combining and deleting lexical elements” Certain principles should be respected to improve the chances that new term will be accepted For instance, terms should consistently reflect some key features of the concepts they are liked to in order to facilitate precise reference At the same time, they should be as economical as possible without giving rise to homonymy

Terms should be lexically systematic and should conform to the phonological and morphological rules of the language, as well as they must conform to general rules of the language, as well as they must conform to the general rules of word-formation where appropriate The meaning of the term should be recognizable independently of any specific context

Dubuc (1997) also set rules for term creation in term of semantics and morphology Semantically, form of term may be change through metaphor, metonymy, extension, eponymy, conversation of grammatical category, or borrowing from other subject fields Meanwhile, morphological changing rules include derivation, composition, compounding, borrowing, blending, acronym, and initialization

In Vietnamese terms, the way to normalize a word is actually a way to use the semantics of a word to create a term This semantic translation is rather subtle and complex, but it can be referred to two forms: transposition morphology does not lead to transposition and transposition morphology The first form can be found in a

large number of words, usually the words of capital, such as people, plants, grass, gold, stone, square, round, etc In these words, in the sense of native speakers, the boundary between the commonly used meaning and the terminology is not always clear It seems common sense (meaning root) and semantic meaning (essentially meaning) are essentially identical, or identical Therefore, dictionaries often face a serious problem: Should they explain the meaning of the words in "language" or

"encyclopedia"? L V Sherba (1958: 68); Bùi Khắc Việt, (1970:19)

It should be further commented that, in general, the morphology of pure Vietnamese terms is not special, as compared to the form of ordinary words The only significant sign that helps a lot for the identification of terminology is the characteristic of the sequence of its appearance, i.e the character of its ability to combine with certain words

2.3.2.1 Lexical features of pharmaceutical terms

* The root words

The root is the main part of a word and contains the essential meaning Hutton (2006:2) states that “roots are the basic medical words More are derived from early Greek and Roman (Latin) words Others have their origins in Arabic, Anglo-Saxon

and German.” For example, the primary root of the term cytogenesis is cyt which comes from the Greek word kytos, meaning cell The suffix genesis means origin so

cytogenesis means the origin and development of cells Many terms can be built up from the same root; consider these examples:

Electrocardiogram, Cardiology, cardiovascular disease, Pericarditis

All the above terms are related to cardio which means heart; electrocardiogram means a record of the electrical activity of the heart, cardiology refers to the study of the heart, cardiovascular disease is a disease affects the heart and blood vessels, pericarditis means an inflammation of the outer layer of the heart (Webster’s Medical Dictionary, 2007)

A root can also be found in the middle of a term such as in periadentitis The

root “aden” is a Greek word meaning gland, the prefix peri means surrounding and

the suffix itis means inflammation, so periadenitis means an inflammation of the

area surrounding a gland Sometimes the root can be used at the end of words such

as lymphocyte which means a white blood cell formed in the bone marrow and distributed throughout the body in lymphatic tissue (Stedman’s Medical Dictionary,

2006) Cyte, which means cell, is the root

Medical terms may contain more than one root The term neurocyte consists

of neuro meaning nerve and cyte meaning cell The meaning of neurocyte is,

therefore, nerve cell Some medical terms have more than two roots as

“neuroencephalomyelopathy” which is a disease of the brain, spinal cord and nerves The term neuroencephalomyelopathy can be divided into three roots: neur-

o-encephal-o-myelo and the suffix pathy

The foundation of a medical term, also pharmaceutical term (A word root usually refers to the part of the body, the active ingredient (drug), condition that is being treated, studied or named by the term.)

Knowing which part of the term is the root and understanding the meaning of the root helps to get the meaning of the whole term

* Prefixes and suffixes

The ability to add affixes, whether prefixes (e.g com-, con-, de-, ex-, inter-,

pre-, pro-, re-, sub-, un-, etc) and suffixes (e.g al, ence, er, ment, ness, ship,

-tion, -ate, -ed, -ize, -able, -ful, -ous, -ive, -ly, -y, etc) makes English extremely flexible This process, referred to as agglutination, is a simple way to completely alter or subtly revise the meanings of existing words, to create other parts of speech out of words (e.g verbs from nouns, adverbs form adjectives, etc), or to create completely new words from new roots There are very few rules in the addition of affixes in English, and Anglo-Saxon affixes can be attached to Latin or Greek roots,

or vice versa An extreme example is the word incomprehensibility, which is based

on the simple root -hen- (original from Indo-European root word ghend- meaning to

grasp or seize) with no less than 5 affixes: in- (not), com- (with), pre- (before), -ible

(capable) and -ity (being)

Some affix additions are surprisingly recent Officialdom and boredom joined the ancient word kingdom as recently as the 20th Century, and apolitical as the negation of political did not appear until 1952 Adding affixes remains the simplest and perhaps the commonest method of creating new words

2.3.2.2 Morphological features of pharmaceutical terms

Chomsky & Lasnik (1995: 33) state that in English, generally only objective Case-assigning verbs can occur in the passive” The use of English in this quotation

is not incoherent with the observation that there is no such object In this quotation, English is used pre-theoretically In the same way we can make statements about medical English, without implying that there is an entity called medical English for

which the statement is correct However, we cannot determine, for example, the exact number of words in medical English In this study, medical English will be used as a pre-theoretical notion We do not make any claims that depend on the precise boundaries of the concept

Word formation is a system of rules that can produce new words on the basis

of existing lexical items Word formation can be distinguished from syntax Both take lexical items as their input, but whereas syntax produces sentences to express thoughts, word formation produces words to name concepts Word formation has an onomasiological function and changes the lexicon

In pharmacy language, word formation is particularly prominent because there

is a steady growth in the number of concepts that need to be named For the study of word formation this naming need is important, because it is a decisive factor in activating word formation Only when there is a new concept that needs a name will word formation rules be activated However, naming needs can also be fulfilled in other ways The most prominent alternative naming procedures are sense extension borrowing

syllables is very low and they have exotic origin, e.g xà phòng, ô tô, etc In

Vietnamese, there are many morphemes that also function as potential monosyllables meanwhile, unlike inflectional languages; the pattern of morpheme form for polysyllables is a compounding one Accordingly, it is easier to recognize

a monosyllable than a word This difference reflects contradictory characteristics of the so-called morpheme in both languages Besides, we can find that there are more morphemes defined as single words in Vietnamese than in English in terms of speech articulation The definition of morpheme is quite general as well as universal It is, however, proposed in a particular way, based on the characteristics

of word formation and distribution of linguistic units ruled by each language Most Vietnamese morphemes are defined owing to word sense which may be meaningful

or meaningless While articulating morphemes, we can see some function as parts

of words though the others are morphemes of collocation The first group is very

common in English The second one is usually found in Vietnamese, e.g nhà, đất,

nước, sự, cuộc, diễn, đã, đang, sẽ, về, etc Back to the term affixation, as discussed above, we can prove that affixation still exists in Vietnamese although it is limited Only prefixation and suffixation are attested A few affixes are used along with reduplication Many affixes come from the Sino-Vietnamese and learned part of the lexicon

As we all know, English is an inflectional language categorized into the group

of analytic ones, which means English word formation becomes less fissional and it

is added manner of syncategorematic words, word order, etc On the contrast, Vietnamese is defined as an isolating language so it has no inflectional phenomenon, but only the roots In terms of word formation, thus, we can easily find that there is a similarity between English and Vietnamese that is about manner

of syncategorematic words and word order

In his presenting the components that constitute words, Professor Nguyễn Thiện Giáp gives the concept of semi-affixes, which is defined as "the factors that

do not completely lose their own sense of things, but have the nature of an affix and are found repeatedly in many words The basic criterion of semi-affixes is their auxiliary nature, reflected in the characteristics of the meaning, distribution and function While completing the function of forming words, they retain the relationship of meaning and form with independent roots so they do not really change into affixes" (Dẫn luận ngôn ngữ học Giáo dục Publishing House, 1998, P.67) When Vietnamese is brought into comparison, Professor Nguyễn Thiện Giáp

states that the factors, like viên, giả, sĩ, hóa and so on, also have the nature of a

semi-affix (P.68) For this reason, morphemes which have grammatical values and Chinese-Vietnamese origin, but full independence are the ones that have the nature

of semi-affixes Here are some examples:

E.g - sĩ : duợc sĩ, bác sĩ, viện sĩ, nha sĩ

- học : thực vật học, dược liệu học, y học, sinh học, hóa học

- tiền - : tiền sử, tiền lệ, tiền sử, tiền tố, tiền nhiệm

- bất - : bất biến, bất cẩn, bất chính, bất công, bất định, bất nhân, bất nghĩa From these examples, we can see that each word is constituted of two factors: one contains meaning of the whole word and the other has a tendency toward grammatical meaning Here, the second factor is considered as the morphemes that have the properties of semi-affixes Putting this into comparison with some English equivalence, we find that there is certain correspondence between Vietnamese

"semi-affixes" with English affixes about the role of forming words

E.g Doctor, pharmacist, dentist

Ethnology, psychology, sociology, biology

Premise, precedent, prehistoric, prefix, predecessor

Invariable, careless, illegal, injustice, indeterminate, ungrateful, unexpected

2.3.2.4 Semantic features of pharmaceutical terms

According to Yule (1996), semantic is the study of the relationship between linguistic forms and entities in the world, or how words literally connect to things Probably, Kreidler (1998) defined linguistic semantic as the study of how languages organize and express meanings

Meaning is so complex and there are so many factors involved in it that a complete definition would be impossible We are dealing with a plurality of dimensions characteristic of the content side linguistic signs (Chitoran, 1973:37) There is the first of all a semantic dimension proper, which covers the denotatum of the sign including also information as to how considered The first aspect is the signification; the latter is its sense The logical dimension of the meaning covers the information conveyed by the linguistic expression on the dentate, including a judgment of it The pragmatic dimension defines the purpose of the expression, why

it is uttered by a speaker The relation emphasized is between language users and language signs The structural dimension covers the structure of linguistic expressions, the complex network of relationship among its component elements as well as between it and other expressions

Considering these dimensions, meaning can be analyzed from different perspectives, of which Leech (1974:9) distinguished seven main types as followed

1 Conceptual Meaning Logical, cognitive or denotative content

2 Connotative Meaning What is communicated by virtue of what language refers to

3 Social Meaning What is communicated of the social circumstances of

language use

4 Affective Meaning What is communicated of the feelings and attitudes of the

speaker or writer

5 Reflected Meaning What is communicated through association with another

sense of the same expression

6 Collective Meaning What is communicated through association with words

tending to occur in the environment of another word

7 Thematic Meaning What is communicated by the way in which the message

is organized in terms of order and emphasis

As things considered, meaning is divided into many types; however, in order not to go beyond the scope of this research, the writer only studies semantic features

of English pharmaceutical terms mainly under the theory of conceptual or denotative meaning

2.4 Summary

This chapter provides a general view on theoretical framework and background

of English pharmaceutical terms; also summarizes the results of other authors who worked on terminology and English pharmaceutical terms The definitions and nature of the key concepts which are presented sufficiently could help orient the

study afterwards

Chapter 3 LINGUISTIC FEATURES OF PHARMACEUTICAL TERMS IN ENGLISH

AND THEIR VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS

This chapter deals with the use of linguistic features of pharmaceutical terms

in English and Vietnamese The analysis process is mainly based on the linguistic views of Sager Understanding comprehensively the uses lexical, morphological and semantic features will help the writer and reader using effectively pharmaceutical terms

3.1 Lexical features of pharmaceutical terms in English and Vietnamese

3.1.1 Borrowing

By definition, when speakers imitate a word from a foreign language and, at least partly, adapt it in sound or grammar to their native language, the process is called “borrowing”, and the word thus borrowed is called a “loanword” or

“borrowing” There is sense in which neither term is really appropriate, on the grounds that the receiving languages never return the borrowed words (Crystal 1995:126) English may be considered an insatiable borrower, in the sense that, while other language take special measures to exclude foreign words form their lexicons English seems to have welcomed such words throughout its history, especially from the Middle English period onwards It is estimated that over 120 languages from all over the world have been sources of present-day English vocabulary

The history of a loanword may be quite complete complex, because such words may have come to English not directly, but via another language or two According to Crystal (1995:285), “loanwords have, as it were, a life of their own

that cuts across the boundaries between languages” To give a stock example, chess

was borrowed into English form Middle French in the fourteen century Later borrowing is characterized by the fact that the English form is closer to Latin word,

e.g alter “altar” (Latin altar) Since Latin borrowed freely from Greek, some of the

loanwords are ultimately of Greek origin

Most of the Latin borrowings in this period were professional or technical terms, belonging to field such as religion, law and literature, scholastic, activities and sciences in general Religious terms include: collect (short prayer), mediator, and redeemer Legal terms include: client, conviction, and subpoena Connected with scholastic activities are: library, scribe, and simile And scientific words include: dissolve, equal, essence, medicine, mercury, and quadrant This discussion

of loanwords from Latin shows that Latin is not only the first major contributor of loanwords to English but also one of the most important sources for coinage of new English words and pharmaceutical terms In the study we found 10 English borrowing pharmaceutical terms (3.08%) but Vietnamese borrowing pharmaceutical terms (16.36%)

Table 3.1: The borrowing pharmaceutical terms

English

terms

Vietnamese terms

General meaning

(Source: Medical dictionary)

Vaccine (n)

Latin

Vac xin A special preparation of antigenic material that

can be used to stimulate the development of antibodies and thus confer active immunity against a specific disease or number of disease Virus (n)

Latin

Vi rút A minute particle that is capable replication but

only within living cells

Laser (n) Tia la ze A device that produces a very thin beam of light

in which high energies are concentrated In surgery laser can be used to operate on small areas

of abnormality (in the retina of the eye) without damaging delicate surrounding tissue

Amebas (n) A mip Protozoa of the genus Amoeba and of related

genera, occurring in soil and water and parasitic in animals

3.1.2 Adding

Adding or derivation is the process of creating separate, morphologically related words A derivational morpheme generates or creates new words by either changing the class of word or forming new words This change in word class, caused by the addition of a derivational bound morpheme, is not restricted to particular class of words This transformation does not, however, affect the lexical meaning of the base forms of the free morpheme

3.1.2.1 Prefixes

A prefix is a part of a word It is found at the beginning of a word, as in

antibody, peranum, oronasal etc Each prefix has a meaning, for example, anti

means against, hydro means water, per means through etc

Prefixes usually add to, change or modify the meaning of the word root For example, the word natal means pertaining to birth; adding the prefix “ante”, which means ‘before’, changes the meaning: antenatal means pertaining to before birth The prefix “Ab” which means from, away from, when added to a word such as

“normal” will change the meaning of the word Normal becomes abnormal which is the opposite of normal The same prefix may be added to different words For

example, the prefix anti means against if added to these words:

Bacterial – antibacterial means bacteria killer

Biotic – antibiotic is a substance which has the ability to destroy the

development of a living organism

It is very useful to understand the prefixes used with medical terms in order to assist in tackling the problems of medical translation

Table 3.2: The prefixes in pharmaceutical terms in English and Vietnamese

Chemo- chemical Chemo-resistance

Endo- Within, in, inner Endoscopy

Hyper- Excessive, too much, above Hyperthyroidism

Hypo- Deficient, too little, below Hypoglycemia

Inter- Between Intervertebral

Nephr- Reins Nephrocalcinosis

Non- No, not Non- bacterial

Pharmaco- Drug Pharmacochemistry

Post- After, behind Postpartum

Radio- Radiation Radiochemistry

Re- or Retro- Back, behind Relapse, Retroaction

Vietnamese pharmaceutical terms, prefixes in the material contain many of

those frequently occurring prefixes of Chinese origin “kháng, đại, tiểu, chứng, tái,

complaining of ailments, of using just the vague word “viêm” “hurt, pain” as in

“viêm họng, viêm mũi, viêm gan ”, “chống” as in “chống chỉ định, chống đái tháo đường, chống động kinh…”, “giảm” as in “giảm miễn dịch”,”giảm tiểu cầu”

After investigating we found 28 terms that contains prefixes (25.45%)

3.1.2.2 Suffixes

A suffix is often found at the end of a term to give it a new meaning The

suffix cide when added to the word fungi changes the word into fungicide which means fungus killer When the suffix logy, the study of, is added to the word root

of the causes and treatments of disorders of the larynx” (Mosby’s Medical, Nursing and Allied Health Dictionary, 1998:917)

Each suffix has a meaning For example, the suffix ectomy means a cutting out, emia refers to a blood condition Understanding the meaning of each suffix

helps to understand the meaning of the whole word

A medical term must have at least one root but does not have to have a prefix and/or a suffix, for example, the term erythrocyte meaning red blood cell It can be

divided into two roots: erythr means red and cyte means cell

Some medical terms have both a suffix and a prefix with the root as in

antisepsis, meaning against infection It contains the prefix anti, the suffix sis and the root sep which is derived from the Greek word sepein meaning putrefaction

Prefixes and suffixes also add to, change or modify the meaning of the word root Table 3.3: Noun and adjective suffixes in pharmaceutical terms in English

Noun suffixes Meaning English Terminology

-algia Condition of pain Arthralgia

-emia Blood condition Leukemia, uremia

-ia Condition, disease Pneumonia

-tion, Act, Process Injection

-rrhea Flow, discharge Diarrhea

-rrhage Bursting forth blood Hemorrhage

Adjective suffixes Meaning English Terminology

-al , -ar, -ary, -eal, -ic Pertaining to Vascular

Chronic

Adjective suffixes Meaning English Terminology

-al , -ar, -ary, -eal, -ic Pertaining to Vascular

Chronic

Table 3.4: Suffixes describe procedures used in patient care

Suffixes Meaning Terminology

-lysis Separation, breakdown Dialysis

-therapy Treatment Radiotherapy

After investigating 324 English pharmaceutical terms, we found 88 derivative terms (37.60%), in which there are 25 terms consisting suffixes (28.41%) The most popular suffixes used are –ing and –tion with 6 terms, accounting for 20.90% The next common suffixes are -al, -algia, -amia with 5 terms (11%), and –lysis, -gram, -osis with 4 terms (9.90%) The terms consisting suffixes –cillin -mycin accounts for the same percentage 7.70% The next groups including suffixes –vir, -er accounts 3 terms; and the least popular suffixes are –ael, -ic, -ar, with 1 term for each

Meanwhile, derivative terms consisting prefixes account for 30.77% with 28 terms Among English pharmaceutical terms, the most common prefixes with 6 terms is Anti- which is followed by Uni- Sub-, Syn-, Extra- with 4 terms The prefixes Poly-, Macro-, sulfa-, Neo-, appear rarely with 2 times for each The other prefixes are pred-, cef-, uni-, tri-, pro-, quadri- post-, pre-, inter-, hypo-, para-, inter- and each of them makes up only 1.10% Below is the table which shows the statistics of prefixes in English pharmaceutical terms

Table 3.5: The statistics of prefixes and suffixes in English pharmaceutical terms

Suffixes Suffix Frequency Percentage

(%) Examples

–cillin, -mycin 4 16 Amoxicillin

Total of suffixes: 25 28.40

Prefixes Prefixes Frequency Percentage (%) Examples

Anti- 9 14.28 Anti-asthmatic herb Chemo- 3 4.76 Chemo-resistance Chrys- 1 1.58 Chrysotherapy

Pre- 2 3.17 Pre-filled disposable syringe

Total of Prefixes 63 71.59

Total of suffixes 25 28.41

Total of Derivation 88 100

Meanwhile, derivative terms consisting suffixes account for 11.81% with 13

Vietnamese terms The most popular suffixes used are “hóa, cấp, dược”as in “kiềm

hóa, chuyển hóa, suy thận cấp, hóa dược, biệt dược”

3.1.3 Compounding

Compound words are formed when two or more words are put together to form a new word with a new meaning They can function as different parts of speech, which can dictate what form the compound takes on For example, the word carry over is an open compound word when it’s used as a verb but it is closed when used as a noun and an adjective

Compounding has been a common feature of pharmaceutical terms Pharmaceutical compound terms are constituted from at least two root morphemes

to denote pharmacy concepts They contain two or more words (or more accurately, two or more roots, all, one, or none of which may be bound) Among 324 terms collected from the chosen materials, there are 193 terms created by compounding, accounting for 59.56% in total The table below state types of compounding and number of terms for each type

Table 3.6: Types of compounding and number of terms for each type

No Type of compounding Number of

4 Adjective - Noun - Noun 10 5.18

5 Adjective - Noun – Noun - Noun 3 1.55

6 Adjective - Adjective - Noun 7 3.63

7 Adjective – Adjective – Adjective - Noun 1 0.51

Total of compounding 193 100%

It can be seen from the table that the majority of terms (107 terms) are in types

of Noun – Noun, accounting for 55.44% such as side effect, dose regimen, and

pectoral lozenge, herbal preparations, active ingredient, antibacterial spectrum,

The number of terms that are created in types of Noun – Noun – Noun and Adjective - Noun – Noun are 15 and 10 correspondingly Examples of Noun – Noun

– Noun terms are liquid-liquid- extraction, liquid purification process, serum

countercurrent extraction, safety mercury pipette, thin film polarography.

The numbers of terms that are created in types Adjective - Adjective - Noun

are 7 correspondingly Examples: concentrate of active liver substance, continuous

The compound terms created by Adjective - Noun – Noun – Noun term is

In brief, there are 193/324 English pharmaceutical terms (59.57%), 48/110 Vietnamese terms (43.36%) that are created by compounding, in which the type Noun – Noun is the most common Noun compounding is the most importance method for the formation of new pharmaceutical terms The figure shows that compounding contributes a considerable number of terms to total amount of English and Vietnamese pharmaceutical terms in general

3.1.4 Shortening

3.1.4.1 Clipping

Clipping, as a morphological process, involves some elements of reduction in the length of a word; or in other words, clipping is a types of word formation in which new words are derived by shorting another word (Doster, 2009:21) We can identify that three types of clipping in the English language are back-clipping, fore-clipping and complex clipping In back-clipping, an element or elements are taken from the end of a word In the case of fore-clipping, an element or elements are taken from the beginning of a word Complex clipping is the combination of back-and fore-clipping After investigating the materials, the write r summarized the figure as followed

Table 3.7: Types of clipping and their proportion

N.0 Types of clipping Number of terms Percentage %

Total of clipped terms 7 100

It is obvious that clipping is not a very productive as the number of clipped terms found in the materials is small (7/324), accounting for 2.99% in all English pharmaceutical terms The back – clipping terms appear 3/11 times (42.86%), and

some examples of this type are lab (laboratory), Carb (Carbohydrates), Sulfas

Acronyms and initialisms are both formed in the same way but then pronounced differently Both are normally based on the initial letters of a string of words or a phrase, but while the initialism continues to pronounce these letters as separate letters, the acronym pronounces them as if they were a normal word (Doster, 2009:22)

In this research, the writer found out 25/324 English terms which are created

by acronym and initialism, accounting for 10.68% in total, acronym seems to be more common than initialism when it occupies 19/25 terms (76%) The minority

belongs to initialism with 5 terms (20%) The term is I.V Solution (Intravenous),

NSAID steroid (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug), PAS (Paminosalicylic acid)

(4%) is combination of acronym and initialism Some examples of initialism: DDS