Abbreviations in written English biomedical discourse: analysis and pedagogical uses

Abstract

One of the most characteristic and recurrent features of the language of Health Sciences is the linguistic device known under the generic term “abbreviation”. This paper examines this type of word formation, especially the categories labelled as “initialisms” and “acronyms”, with the aim of proposing its inclusion within EMP (English for Medical Purposes) programmes. Toward this end, we analyzed articles drawn from English generalist medical journals such as JAMA, The Lancet, The New England Journal of Medicine, The British Medical Journal, etc. The papers thus analyzed were used to reach a two-fold objective: 1) to introduce the EMP Spanish students with a good command of English to the reading of different types of medical texts (“research papers”, “review papers”, etc.); 2) to make them familiar with abbreviations. Our study shows that abbreviations may have different representations, as far as their length, composition and graphic form are concerned, and that they linguistically behave like common nouns. Finally, pedagogical applications are presented.