Inglés técnico en salud

Unidad 2 Orientación práctica

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U2 Inglés técnico en salud

Inglés
Técnico en Salud

Adaptado de: http://comofuncionaque.com/funciones-de-la-salud-

publica/

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Index

Specific competence ........................................................................... 4

Achievements .................................................................................. 4
2.1 Supporting materials ...................................................................... 5
The use of the dictionary and visual aids ......................................... 5
2.1.1 Abbreviations .......................................................................... 7
2.1.2 Polysemy, homonyms, synonyms, true and false cognates .... 8
2.2 Discourse boundaries .................................................................... 9
2.2.1 Generalization ......................................................................... 9
2.2.2 Contrast and Comparison ......................................................10
2.2.3 Concision ...............................................................................11
2.2.4 Cause-effect relationship........................................................11
2.2.5 Inductive - deductive ..............................................................12
2.2.7 Collocations ...........................................................................12
2.2.8 Affixation ................................................................................13
2.2.9 Adjectival derivation ...............................................................13
Unit Closure ....................................................................................15
Find out more .....................................................................................16
References .........................................................................................17
Illustrations .........................................................................................18

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Lead-in
There is a big difference in the choice of words we make when we communicate here and
there on a daily basis; in this circumstances we tend to use one- or two-syllable words,
whereas the terminology selected in medicine makes use of a vast selection of words with
three or more syllables; for instance: names of diseases, chemicals, medicines, research
papers titles and the like, that might as well be expressed with a simple English equivalent
or paraphrased in a few or in shorter words.

When compared, nouns modifying nouns as in: childhood thought disorder misdiagnosis
versus pre-adolescent hyperactivity diagnosis -which in essence mean the same- it is
feasible to comprehend how hard it is to grasp the sense, if not the meaning, the
expression it is intended to convey.

Similar complexity is also present in the use of compound words -substantially those
deriving from Latin or Greek root words – which are not connected, but work together;
those which are formed with a word plus a prefix or, in some other cases, are written as
one word, e.g.: eyesight, neurodegenerative, hyperventilating, dyslexic, etc.

To further illustrate these difficulties, consider the way in which not only 1) plural, but 2)
third person singular verb endings in present simple tense, as well as 3) possession are
shown in the English language by means of a letter s:

o They are clinical nurses, but not her; she works at a specific hospital
department in which Nurse’s day is not celebrated.

To add insult to injury, Latin-origin words can also do that with different endings as in:
practice - practical, energy – energetic, or muscle/muscular.

By the same token, medical research articles and journals quite often begin with a long
conjunction (furthermore, nevertheless, or however) following an idea previously
mentioned, when and or but may be equally useful; a tendency in those kind of papers to
over-use the passive voice which is also a recurrent feature.

Despite of all of the above, translators should keep in mind that being aware of this
combination of aspects (along with the inherent socio-cultural subtleties involved) can
always have a positive impact in their performance.

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Specific competence

Demonstrates the ability to access, interpret and extract valid

information from texts in English through the recognition of
contextualized terminology related to diseases, body parts, signs,
symptoms and other topics of health texts, with a particular
teaching and reading objective.

Achievements

1 Makes an effective use of the bilingual dictionary and medical terms when the
words or their combinations included in reference texts limit inference.

2 Extract relevant information from a text based on a specific reading objective.

Identify words and phrases that act as word formants within the sentence,
3 between different sentences and even between paragraphs of medical texts in
English.

4 Recognize and remember medical terms based on affixation.

5 Illustrate ideas and fundamental concepts reviewed in the unit

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2.1 Supporting materials

The use of the dictionary and visual aids

In the same way a message gets distorted and parts of words are completely dropped
when talking on the phone and the connection is broken, the ability to understand and later
translate a written or oral text relies on the translators’ optimal use of a paper or digital
good dictionary; in other words, the more the receivers of the message discriminate the
use of a word or phrase in several contexts and some other pertaining features, the easier
will be for them to remember its use accurately.

Figure 2 How to use a dictionary

Besides, paying attention to each piece of information the dictionary offers may be useful
in the short and long term whenever attending to sense, rather than to meaning, is more
suitable or even advisable.

As shown in Figure 1 above, among the items an entry in a dictionary usually inserts1,
attention should also be paid to the part of the speech that indicates how a word functions

1 Phonetic transcription - the word is spelled exactly how it sounds and denotes how to pronounce it. Example sentences(s) - helps the reader to decide which
definition makes the most sense in each context, etc.

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in a sentence, for the simple reason that it can affect the sense or the meaning of the
sentence, that is to say, some words can shift from being an adjective to 2 a noun to 3 a
verb, all in the same sentence:

A very upset woman recorded the event with her cellphone yesterday
because, even though the victory was an upset in the championship, they all
upset her with their cruel remarks.

Moving on to the visual aspect of written and oral communication, a translator often
encounters and may benefit from, visual aids (such as photos, pictures, illustrations,
charts, tables, or the ones that add typographical emphasis to a text, like font, font sizes,
bold, italics, underlining, among others) help illustrate the content and enhance
understanding of a text creating a memorable and stimulating message.

In parallel, the diagnosis, if not the treatment, of a disease relies heavily on imaging
studies such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), computed tomography (CT),
ultrasound, nuclear medicine or X-ray and, as expected, the reports generated by medical
imaging may contain complex technical and medical information, so basic orientation on
how to read and interpret imaging studies turns out to be of peculiar importance for the
health promoter who collaborates making an idea clear and free from ambiguity to a
patient.

One category that needs to be set apart here is audiovisual translation. This modality
requires the critical understanding of two different channels of communication, the acoustic
and the visual channels happening simultaneously while producing a coherent and
cohesive text, which makes the mode of discourse the bull’s eye for translators who need
to be able to make sense of what is seen and listened to; chiefly because of the fact that,
whereas a written text is organized in a temporal sequence, visual image is designed by
the logic of spatiality, arrangements and simultaneity mixed with culturally produced
regularities.

Suppose you are to translate the content of the following video to a group of new mothers
attending a workshop on babies’ language development:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9shPouRWCs; the amount of information delivered in
it poses a challenge that has to be tackle.

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Figure 3 Translation

2.1.1 Abbreviations

Picture this scenario, a patient is being checked and after consultation Dr. Santiago asks
nurse Emilio to tell Ms. Ruiz, who recently had had a brain tumor removed and ended up
being paralyzed on one side of her body, that before taking her into surgery again, he
needs to double check her last MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging), EKG
(Electrocardiogram) and CBC (Complete Blood Count) results as soon as possible; but
Emilio has no idea what the last two abbreviations mean. What do you think would be the
outcome?

The potential for medical jargon to exhibit misunderstanding on patient-centered care is

huge, despite the fact that medical language is used to convey a great amount of
information with the least confusion and the most precision.

Abbreviations, acronyms and initialisms are part of that jargon and terminology and it is the
responsibility of anyone who helps in preventing or treating illness or disability to learn the
meanings, at least, of those that are common in the facility in which they work.

Definitions Examples
Abbreviation: shorten Abbreviation: FX - fracture;
form of words. HTN hypertension.
Acronyms: Short word Acronyms:
SOB: Shortness of breath;
formed from the 1st ANED: Alive no evidence
letters of the longer of disease.
phrase that is read as a
word itself. Initialism:ICU (Intensive
Care Unit)
Initialism: Formed by the
• ESRD (End Stage Renal
initial letters of a series Disease)
of words but is
pronounced by its letters, • ER (Emergency Room)
not as a word itself.

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2.1.2 Polysemy, homonyms, synonyms, true and false cognates

As stated before, medical translators should strive to invalidate the linguistic gap between
patients and professionals, so that the provision of a better service is guaranteed;
nevertheless, there are some factors that can easily define the quality of the translated
material as badly or well performed and make the translation of English into another
language more difficult than it really is, examine the following list:

1) Polysemy -the many meanings a single word can take.

Consider as an example the vast number of definitions the
word get has: receive, obtain, arrive, etc.; or green: unripe,
young or simply denoting color; the latter due to shifts in
application (one of the sources of polysemy)2 or the term
acute with its three basic meanings: extreme, angle and
quick to understand.
Figure 1 Language skills-translator’s

2) Homonym - a word that sounds the same or is spelled thetoolsame box

as another word but
has a different meaning; for example: mnemo –to assist in remembering, and pneumo-
pertaining to the lungs (letter p is silent); plural –more than one, and pleural –pertaining to
the lungs.

3) True and false cognates: cognates - words that have the same origin as other words, or
are related in some way to other words, imply to those who study them not only the
linguistic analysis of a language at all linguistic levels: phonology, morphology, syntax,
etc., but from a socio-cultural, cognitive, anthropological point of view.
Examples of true cognates are: artist, dentist, doctor, professor, vice-president, and many
more; false cognates are pairs of words that seem to be the same but have different
meanings; they are also called false friends, like: jubilation (happiness in English),
jubilación (retirement in Spanish); pie: (a type of food baked in English), pie (anatomy-end
of leg in Spanish).

4) Synonyms: a word that means the same as another word. In terms of style (happy, glad,
joyful) or pertaining to a dialect (flashlight – American English; torch – British English).
Despite the fact that these words can also be included in the translator’s tool box, their
individual socio-pragmatic use must be taken into account before picking one.
Considering all of the above mentioned, an automatic –online- translator can only be
useful to get the gist of what is stated in the source text, for it lacks the abilities a human

2 Acronyms fit in this category, too.

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being possesses of discriminating the sense of a word according to the context in which it
appears3.

2.2 Discourse boundaries

The idea that technical translation is the same as scientific translation is based on a
misconception; they are indeed connected, they both use specialized terminology and deal
with sophisticated scientific topics, but there are more dynamic differences. The term
scientific implies knowledge that is verified through observation and experiment, it is
critically assessed, organized and is subjected to general principles, on the contrary, the
term technical has to do with the application of –precisely- that knowledge for practical
purposes. It is in this, the practical use of the scientific knowledge within the medical
domain that your role as a translator of technical texts may be useful to infer, hypothesize
or draw conclusions.

Figure 4 Semantic change

2.2.1 Generalization

The term generalization, also known as semantic broadening, makes reference to the
change in the meaning of a word by expansion, so that the word is applicable in more
contexts, which could be easily perceived in a sequence of nouns that is replaced by one
general term, or in constructions in which detailed descriptions are considerably simplified.
In contrast, semantic narrowing imposes a more restricted meaning to a word.
In a piece of writing or oral speech this change is introduced once an initial statement
captures an extensive idea but with a scant supply of details. In legal matters, for instance,
a written statement called affidavit, the sequence of events is mentioned one by one with great

3 Syntactic ambiguity, as in: I shot an elephant wearing my pajamas, should be dealt with in Traducción de textos en salud.

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attention to sequence and detail. With the semantic broadening of the text the statement could
be presented as follows:

The defendant uses video recordings taken

from the hotel lobby, an eyewitness testimony
along with some pieces of clothing to argue
that Mrs. Martin is innocent because she was
not at the scene of the crime at that particular
time.

Moreover, saying that the defendant exhibits many different pieces of evidence to support
his statement, will simply suffice.

A question arises here though, is generalization accurate? The answer is no. Most likely,
when translating a text you will have to be able to avoid or identify misleading
generalizations of the source; to provide a better example, contrast this with the previous
idea:
'The central point is that the defendant uses testimony from many different sources to
prove that Mrs. Martin is innocent.'

2.2.2 Contrast and Comparison

Comparing and contrasting are ways of

exploring the similarities and
differences between two concepts;
comparing is showing the similarities,
and contrasting, the differences. Seems
to be easy, but you would not compare
reading a book to riding a donkey
without given a steady support to your
line of thought.

Figure 5. Signal Words

ds

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2.2.3 Concision

More than just writing the equivalent dictionary of words or, in this case in particular, as
translators of medical texts, you cannot expect any kind of monetary retribution for your
work; nevertheless, an extra step, exert additional effort to prepare a short and clear final
product expressing what needs to be said without unnecessary words, needs to be taken
and the best ways to achieve concision are: restructure sentences from the source
language into proper target-language word order by eliminating words which do not
contribute to meaning or clarity; improve the basic organization of the source text in order
to carry the reader or listener from section to section in a smooth and cohesive manner;
recycle meaningful information previously stated

2.2.4 Cause-effect relationship

One of the most valued skills of a Cause-effect Signal words

reader is their ability to recognize
and interpret cause-effect
relationships within a text for they Therefore So Consequently Then

allow us to appreciate both the Thus Hence As a result Due to

author's communicative intention because Since Accordingly Which
caused
and his worldview.

For translations purposes, of course, cause and effect connections have to do with some
degree of difficulty in clearly inferring relationships.

The sensibility to discriminate that a particular independent variable (the cause) has an
effect on the dependent variable (the effect), is based on three points of judgment:
association, time ordering, and the absence of poor reasoning argumentation.

The positive correlation between age and health problems such as eye strain, stress or
backache, clearly provides a common example of association. As for time ordering, the
condition is simple, the cause must be stated before the effect; finally, regarding poor
reasoning, what comes into play is the possibility of alternative factors influencing the
relationship between the two variables of interest; which would be the equivalent of holding
a veterinarian accountable for the service he provided to an old dog whose right leg was
seriously damaged and ultimately died; when in fact, a cardiac arrest and dehydration
were responsible for the fatal outcome.

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2.2.5 Inductive - deductive

Many writers express their ideas with their own style; within this style we can consider
such aspects as the type of text, the format it uses, the choice of vocabulary they make,
among other aspects. The way in which ideas are presented is also present in the style.

Someone may prefer to read inductive or deductive texts, because that is the way they are
accustomed to process information; those who prefer deductive texts are interested in
presenting part of a generalization and in continuing gradually explaining it, while in an
inductive text the reader approaches information that form a body of knowledge that is
likely to be generalized.

Figure 6. Text Inductive and Deductive Reasoning

2.2.7 Collocations

In Cambridge Online Dictionary the concept of collocation is defined as follows: a word or

phrase that is often used with another word or phrase, in a way that sounds correct to
people who have spoken the language all their lives, but might not be expected from the
meaning; as in heart failure, patient safety or insert in a sentence as below:

 I never play the lottery, I don´t like taking chances,

 I’d like to eat hamburgers and onion rings.
 Can you bring a bottle of cough medicine or at least medicine for a chest
infection?

There are two kinds of collocations: lexical – they combine two or more nouns, verbs,
adjectives or adverbs (content words), e.g.: make mistakes, heavy rain, deeply wounded,
speak loudly; and grammatical - which associate these words with a certain preposition,
for instance: Interest + in, insist + on, independently + of.

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Having that in mind you should consider the fact that It is because semantic cohesion -the
way in which words reflect the way we understand and give meaning to the world- and
syntactic structures –sets of prescriptive rules to form sentences correctly- are intimately
related, specific verbal collocations will help to anticipate and better interpret the meaning
of a text.

2.2.8 Affixation

Affixes -grammatical particles added to a word, a root or a phrase to produce derived

forms- conform the linguistic process that belongs not only to the terminology of basic
medical English (Salager, 1983) – it is also an important feature of specialized domains
and its use makes words universal; what is more, when well interpreted, they help to
determine the meaning of a term and at the same time, to increase vocabulary.

Let us look at an example: in the term microbiology (the study of microorganism), the stem
of te word -the minimum unit with meaning that cannot be broken down any further- is bio
(which means life on its own), the particles added at the beginning (micro -small) and at
the end (logy-the study of) clearly articulate its new or derived meaning.

Identify multi-word terms as translations units

un is, in strict sense, one more of the crucial
skills that medical translators should stack
and keep at hand for regular use in their tool
help box.

ful

2.2.9 Adjectival derivation

This last topic will be equally useful to perform a more specific analysis in the reading and
interpretation of the source texts. Adjectival derivation is a linguistic process which
consists in joining affixes to a word base (or lexeme), originating a new word, that can be
grammatically classified as an adjective.
There are two main variants:

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Deverbal adjectives: words (usually a noun or an adjective) that derived from a verb,
which is why they are also called derivative nouns and derivative adjectives. Examples of
derivative adjectives include the following:

Close (verb) → Closed minded (adjective)

Adapt (verb) → Adaptive leadership (adjective)
Walking (verb) → walking patient (adjective)

Denominal adjectives

In this kind of adjectives, in which the affix has been added to a noun, some examples will
be:

Phenomenon (noun) → phenomenal (adjective)

Color blindness (noun) → color blind (adjective)
Albinism (noun) → albino (adjective)

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Unit Closure

What you did in this unit, that is, learning about new ways to understand, consequently, to
better anticipate the style and purpose of the content of a text via the expedient
identification of the most representative processes of word formation, as well as by making
a judicious use of a dictionary –either paper or digital- has set the basis for the
interpretation of a medical written or oral text that will properly lead you to the study and
satisfactorily application of the strategies you will learn in the following unit.

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Find out more

CrashCourse. (2014). Language: Crash Course

Psychology #16. Available in:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9shPouRWCs

World Health Organization – Publications. (2016)

http://search.who.int/search?q=technical+publications&i
e=utf8&site=who&client=_en_r&proxystylesheet=_en_r
&output=xml_no_dtd&oe=utf8&getfields=doctype

Correcto uso de la terminología médica, ABC de la

buena comunicación. Available from:

http://www.sld.cu/entrevista/2016/04/23/correcto-uso-
de-la-terminologia-medica-abc-de-la-buena-
comunicacion

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References

1. Cambridge University Press. (2008). Cambridge online dictionary, Cambridge Dictionary

online. Retrieved from: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/
2. Chesla,E. (2000). Read better, remember more. 2nd ed. New York, N.Y. Learning Express.
LLC. Pdf
3. DiYanni, R., Pat C. (2001). The Scribner Handbook for Writers. 3rd ed. Boston: Allyn &
Bacon. Available in:
http://www.blinn.edu/brazos/humanities/writingcenter/Worksheets/Misplaced,%20Interrupti
ng,%20and%20Dangling%20Modifiers%20Handout.pdf
4. Crystal, D. (2003). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. Cambridge
University Press. Pdf
5. Merriam- Webster’s Learner’s Dictionary (accessed July 18, 2018), http:// www.merriam-
webster.com/ dictionary
6. Orwell, G. (1946) Politics and the English Language Horizon. Available online, http://
www.orwell.ru/ library/ essays/ politics/ english/ e_ polit/ .
Stadistics Solutions. (2018). Complete Dissertation. Available from:
http://www.statisticssolutions.com/establishing-cause-and-effect/
7. Zaabalawi, R, et.al. (2017) English collocations: A novel approach to teaching the
language's last bastion. Available from:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2215039016300509
8. Salager-Meyer, F. (1994) ”Hedges and textual communicative function in medical English
written discourse. English for Specific Purposes.pdf

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Illustrations

Figure 1 Salud pública. Adapted from:

https://comofuncionaque.com/funciones-de-la-salud-publica/

Figura 2 How to use a Dictionary. Available from:

http://tigertranslation.com/en-us/home.aspx

Figura 3 Translation Available from:

https://www.slideshare.net/goodnesses/how-to-use-a-dictionary

Figure 4 Semantic change Available from:

http://www.nadineducca.cat/2016/05/semantic-change-broadening-part-1-
brand.html

Figure 5 Signal words. Available from:

http://s3.amazonaws.com/libapps/accounts/46189/images/apple_and_orange.png

Figure 6 Text Inductive and Deductive. Available from: Reasoning

https://courses.lumenlearning.com/waymaker-level3-english/chapter/text-inductive-
reasoning/

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