Biomedical English: A corpus-based approach

229 Pages·2013·4.765 MB·English

by  Isabel Verdaguer, Natalia Judith Laso, Danica Salazar

Biomedical English
Studies in Corpus Linguistics (SCL)
SCL focuses on the use of corpora throughout language study, the development
of a quantitative approach to linguistics, the design and use of new tools for
processing language texts, and the theoretical implications of a data-rich
discipline.
For an overview of all books published in this series, please see
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General Editor Consulting Editor
Elena Tognini-Bonelli Wolfgang Teubert
The Tuscan Word Centre/ University of Birmingham
The University of Siena
Advisory Board
Michael Barlow Graeme Kennedy
University of Auckland Victoria University of Wellington
Douglas Biber Geoffrey N. Leech
Northern Arizona University University of Lancaster
Marina Bondi Michaela Mahlberg
University of Modena and Reggio Emilia University of Nottingham
Christopher S. Butler Anna Mauranen
University of Wales, Swansea University of Helsinki
Sylviane Granger Ute Römer
University of Louvain University of Michigan
M.A.K. Halliday Jan Svartvik
University of Sydney University of Lund
Yang Huizhong John M. Swales
Jiao Tong University, Shanghai University of Michigan
Susan Hunston Martin Warren
University of Birmingham The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Volume 56
Biomedical English. A corpus-based approach
Edited by Isabel Verdaguer, Natalia Judith Laso and Danica Salazar
Biomedical English
A corpus-based approach
Edited by
Isabel Verdaguer
Natalia Judith Laso
University of Barcelona
Danica Salazar
University of Oxford
John Benjamins Publishing Company
Amsterdam / Philadelphia
TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
8
the American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence
of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.
Cover design: Françoise Berserik
Cover illustration from original painting Random Order
by Lorenzo Pezzatini, Florence, 1996.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Biomedical English : a corpus-based approach / Edited by Isabel Verdaguer, Natalia Judith
Laso, Danica Salazar.
p. cm. (Studies in Corpus Linguistics, issn 1388-0373 ; v. 56)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. English language--Textbooks for foreign speakers. 2. English language--Technical
English. 3. Medical sciences--Terminology. I. Verdaguer, Isabel, editor of com-
pilation.
PE1128B57 2013
420.1’47--dc23 2013008443
isbn 978 90 272 0362 5 (Hb ; alk. paper)
isbn 978 90 272 7192 1 (Eb)
© 2013 – John Benjamins B.V.
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In memory of Anna Poch (1947–2008)

Table of contents
Introduction ix
Isabel Verdaguer, Natalia Judith Laso & Danica Salazar
Collocations, lexical bundles and SciE-Lex: A review of corpus research
on multiword units of meaning 1
Natalia Judith Laso & Danica Salazar
SciE-Lex: A lexical database 21
Isabel Verdaguer, Natalia Judith Laso, Trinidad
Guzmán-González, Danica Salazar, Elisabet Comelles,
Emilia Castaño & Joseph Hilferty
Formal and functional variation of lexical bundles in biomedical English 39
Danica Salazar, Isabel Verdaguer, Natalia Judith Laso,
Elisabet Comelles, Emilia Castaño & Joseph Hilferty
A corpus-based analysis of the collocational patterning of adjectives
with abstract nouns in medical English 55
Natalia Judith Laso & Suganthi John
As described below: A corpus-based approach to the verb describe
in scientific English 73
Aaron Ventura
Negation in biomedical English 105
Natalia Judith Laso, Elisabet Comelles & Isabel Verdaguer
A cross-disciplinary analysis of personal and impersonal features in English
and Spanish scientific writing 121
Danica Salazar, Aaron Ventura & Isabel Verdaguer
Gender assignment in present-day scientific English: A case study
in the field of Zoology journals 145
Trinidad Guzmán-González
iii Biomedical English: A corpus-based approach
The metaphorical basis of discourse structure 165
Emilia Castaño, Joseph Hilferty & Isabel Verdaguer
Frames, constructions, and metaphors in Spanish FrameNet 185
Carlos Subirats
Subject index 211
Introduction
Isabel Verdaguer, Natalia Judith Laso & Danica Salazar
This volume explores the theoretical, methodological, lexicographic and peda-
gogical aspects of a specific sublanguage of English, the biomedical domain,
with special attention to phraseology. The research presented here is the
result of the work of the Lexicology and Corpus Linguistics Research Group
(GRELIC), whose main objective initially was to build SciE-Lex, a lexical data-
base of general English terms employed in biomedical discourse. We use the
term biomedicine in a broad sense, encompassing the related life sciences of
biology, medicine and biochemistry.
The original aim was to provide non-native speakers of English, particularly
those with Spanish as a mother tongue, with a lexicographic tool that includes the
grammatical, semantic, collocational and phraseological information necessary
for the effective use of general English terms used in this specialized register. The
team members therefore carried out an analysis of biomedical English in order to
create a database detailing the characteristics of biomedical discourse that need
to be mastered in order to produce a well-constructed scientific text. Our focus,
however, was not terminological vocabulary, which is relatively similar across
languages and does not pose many comprehension or production problems for
professionals whose first language is not English, but the discourse and phraseo-
logical conventions of biomedicine essential for scientists to communicate effec-
tively in this language. We have thus aimed to cater for, where possible, the specific
communication needs of the biomedical scientific community, and aid scientists
who are non-native speakers of English in the dissemination of their research.
Our objective implied a number of methodological and theoretical decisions,
which are thoroughly discussed in this volume on biomedical discourse. Our
research addresses different aspects of biomedical language, such as lexicogram-
matical patterns, discourse analysis, lexicography, needs analysis and pedagogical
applications.
The use of corpus data and methodology was a sine qua non. As at the
beginning of the project there was as yet no publicly available corpus of scien-
tific English, we built up the Health Science Corpus (HSC) using research articles
published in prestige journals in the area of medicine, biology and biochemistry.
The real language data from the HSC have been the basis and starting point of our