Abstract
This paper discusses the influence of the use of English as a lingua franca in the field of academic research in medicine and its effects on the Spanish medical language, as evidenced after an in-depth revision of the existing literature. The study has been based on the analysis of a medical corpus made up of 311 Conclusion sections of Spanish articles, which correspond to the specialties of Cardiology, Paediatrics and Psychology. Upon justifying the decision of using the English language as essential for academic life and international communication, the discussion focuses on the impact of the specialized literature on professionals whose native language is not English and the inclusion of new vocabulary sometimes justified as the result of a need on the part of scientists to explain new concepts. The massive incorporation of vocabulary has led researchers to deal with the different ways in which neologisms are introduced in the Spanish medical language analyzing the corresponding results, which include: words from other languages which are slightly modified; words from other languages added with or without morphological adaptation; addition of suffixes or prefixes; the use of “false friends” and the use of certain words not registered in the dictionary.
Highlights
In recent years the fast development in technology and commerce has led researchers to put their experiences into words
It is obvious that English is vital for Revista Alicantina de Estudios Ingleses academic life and international communication and anyone who intends to succeed in the scientific community has to write necessarily in English
Kachru (2001) illustrates the spread of English around the world and its acquisition and use by means of 3 concentric circles: a) the inner circle, containing between 320 and 380 million people, represents those countries in which English is the primary language. People in this circle speak Standard British or American English, b) the outer or extended circle, with 150-300 million people, represents those countries where English was spread in a non-native setting and the language has become part of a country’s main institutions, playing a relevant “foreign language” role in a multilingual setting (e.g. Singapore, India, etc), c) and the expanding circle, represented by 100-1,000 million people, which includes those countries which consider English an international language but have no history of colonization by those in the inner circle
Summary
In recent years the fast development in technology and commerce has led researchers to put their experiences into words. Their inhabitants are bound to command this official language, called foreign language, as early as possible, because it is a complement to their native language This is the status that English has in over seventy countries, such as Ghana, Nigeria, India, Singapore, etc. According to Crystal (1997:130), despite the number of L1 speakers being greater at the moment, if current population and learning trends continue, L2 speakers will overcome those with English as an L1 in 10 years time because the countries of L2 speakers have a much greater growth rate These expectations lead us to the idea that the only possible concept of. Evidence is represented by the Spanish or the American Civil War, The Vietnam War, etc. House (1999:73-89) underlines the advantages of English as a lingua franca in Europe, for instance, the fact that it gives rise to a functional flexibility by its wide international extension and becomes a very useful tool of communication for different regions and identities that can have English as a common means of communication
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