Medical Terminology and the Reading of Medical English Texts

Abstract

The study aims to explicit the importance of medical terminology in reading medical English texts and learn to understand a medical term by word-formation pattern and apply this into reading. By referring to various works and papers about medical terminology and reading medical English texts, their relationship was found. Upon this, word-formation pattern was used to decompound the word parts of medical terms, and the study was concluded with the application of this pattern in reading medical English texts. The study shows that characteristics of medical terminology can help a lot in understanding the complexity of medical terminology. Word-formation pattern enables readers to recognize prefixes, roots, and affixes of medical terminology and decomposed long and discouraging words. Word-formation pattern was useful in the understanding of both medical terminology and medical English texts. It could highly improve learners’ efficiency in remembering medical terms and in reading medical English texts.