Olesia Lazer-Pankiv & Iuliia Pysmenna

ABSTRACT

The analysis of phonetic and orthographic peculiarities of medical terms and term-elements borrowed from Latin has revealed that the process of their phonetic and orthographic adaptation in English clinical terminology often takes place irregularly and not systematically, which gives rise to controversy concerning both lexicographic representation of medical terms and the issues of linguodidactics. About 8,000 clinical terms selected from various lexicographic English-language sources have been studied on the basis of etymological and comparative approaches. An emphasis was made on the peculiarities of borrowing and adaptation of the most common Latin term-elements and terms in English clinical terminology. All conclusions have been verified by the results of quantitative analysis. The main tendencies in the process of phonetic and orthographic development of Latin terms in English are determined as follows: (1) imitation of classical Latin spelling of terms; (2) ‘simplification’ of classical Latin spelling; (3) syncretism of the first and second tendencies (parallel use of classical Latin and ‘simplified’ variants as synonyms). The analysis has also identified in some cases the phenomenon of ‘hypercorrectness’ (excessive application of the rules of phonetic and orthographic adaptation in the reproduction of Latinized ancient Greek term-elements in English clinical terminology that is not etymologically justified). The lack of unified norm of phonetic and orthographic development of Greek-Latin terms and term-elements in English clinical terminology is reflected in all analyzed reference sources, complicating the lexicographic description of medical terms and the process of forming terminological competence of foreign medical students.

Keywords

clinical terminology; Latin language; phonetic and orthographic development of Latinisms; terminological competence

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