One of the
courses I teach in Rome is called ‘Medical English Pronunciation’. It is a
course designed to help medical students prepare for an attachment in an
English-speaking country as well as medical professionals who want to work in English
or take part in conferences conducted in English. It is, I think, the only
course of this kind that we have in Italy.
The
textbooks I use in class are Peter Roach’s English
Phonetics and Phonology (2009; 4th edition. Cambridge, CUP) and
Collins & Mees’ Practical Phonetics
and Phonology (2008; 2nd edition. Routledge). My students also
own a copy of J. Wells’ LPD.
It being a medical English pronunciation course, when
I started in April I recommended that my students also have a book covering a
wide variety of medical vocabulary in English. After spending almost a month
thinking carefully about a suitable one, I chose Professional English in Use: Medicine by Eric H. Glendinning and
Ron Howard (2007. Cambridge, CUP). The book has 60 two-page units and “topics
include diseases and symptoms, investigations, treatment, examining, and
prevention”. As far as I know, this is the only medical English textbook which
contains a glossary with the pronunciations of most of the words/phrases/idiomatic
expressions mentioned in the units.
Having been
using the book for nearly two months now I’ve realized I should have warned my
students at the beginning of the course that some of the IPA transcriptions
provided in the index are not always consistent or are indeed entirely wrong. Have a
look at the following expressions (pp.168-175):
approximation əˈprɒk.sɪ.meɪ.ʃən
blood culture ˈblʌd
ˌkʌltʃa
book into ˌbʊk
ɪnˈtuː
bowel baʊ.el
cadaver kəˈdæv.ər,
kəˈdaːv.ər
chiropodist kɪrˈɒp.ə.dɪst
coeliac disease ˈsiː.liː.æk
dɪzˌiːz
empty the bladder ˌemp.ti
ðə bˈlædər
example ɪgzˈɑːm.pl
malabsorption ˌmæl.əˈbzɔːp.ʃən
metastasis ˌmətæˈstæsɪs
orthotist ɔː.ˈθə.tɪst
persistent vegetative state pəˌsɪs.tənt ˈvedʒ.ɪ.te.tɪv ˌsteɪt
pins and needles ˌpɪnz
ənd ˈniː.dlˌz
prosthetist ˈprɒ.θə.tɪst
purulent ˈpjʊəruːl.ənt
stitches ˈstɪtʃiz
One of the
difficulties students encounter when dealing with English pronunciation is the
stressing of compounds. My students know that, for
example, medical history usually has
late stress, ˌmedical ˈhistory, but medical school is different since it is early-stressed: ˈmedical ˌschool.
What about
the expression terminally ill, as in the
phrase a hospice for the terminally ill?
Glendinning & Howard give ˈtɜː.mɪ.nə.li
ˌɪl in the index (p.175), but I suppose this is incorrect. Don’t English
native speakers say the ˈterminally ˈill?
And what do
you make of panic attack, transcribed
as ˈpæn.ɪk əˌtæk (p.172)?
