医学英语术语隐喻特征分析及其对医学英语词汇教学的启示

Analysis on the metaphorical features of medical English terminology and the implications on teaching medical terms to medical students

医学英语术语作为记录西方医学发展史的语言标记物,真实地反映了西方医学自古希腊至今两千多年的发展历程。隐喻机制在医学英语术语的形成过程中发挥了重要作用,这些反映在医学英语术语中的实体隐喻、方位隐喻和神话隐喻等方面。医学英语术语的学习对医学生来说非常重要,而了解并掌握医学英语术语形成的隐喻机制对医学生扩展医学词汇至关重要。医学英语教师可通过为学生提供医学英语词汇学习“脚手架”方式,培养学生的隐喻思维能力,提升学生的隐喻观,进而破解医学英语词汇学习的困境。

As a language marker recording the development history of the western medicine,medical English terminology mirrors the development of medicine from the ancient Greeks to the present.The metaphorical features of the medical English terminology plays a vital role in its formations by metaphors,such as entity and substance metaphor,orientation metaphor and myth metaphor.It is important for the medical students to grasp the mechanism of the metaphorical features in the formation of the medical terminology.The better way in teaching medical terms to medical students is to provide“medical terms scaffolding”for the students,promote their metaphorical thinking ability and raise their metaphorical concept,thus settling the vocabulary learning difficulties where most medical students feel much cornered.