Mitigation of claims in medical research papers: A comparative study of English and Spanish writers

Since its inception in 2004, Communication & Medicine has been consistently interrogating the `black box’ of what is routinely characterised as `the communicative turn’ in healthcare practice in clinical and public health domains. It is now firmly established as a leading forum for these critical debates[EN] This study identifies variation in the use of mitigation devices in medical written English between authors with English as their first language and those with Spanish as their first language. A corpus of 30 medical research papers written in English and published in international journals was compiled, 15 by researchers with Spanish as their first language and 15 by native English-speakers, and this was compared with a second corpus of 15 medical papers written in Spanish. By a comparative analysis of how mitigation devices were used in both corpora, it was possible to establish whether their frequency and the rhetorical strategies adopted varied depending on the writers’ linguistic background.Carrió Pastor, ML. (2016). Mitigation of claims in medical research papers: A comparative study of English and Spanish writers. Communication and Medicine. 13(3):249-261. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/80668S24926113

Cartografía de la interferencia cultural de la variación terminológica

CLINA is a Translation Studies journal that addresses the growing need for dissemination platforms to showcase recent advances in Translation, Interpreting and neighboring disciplines.[EN Communication in a specific setting should be carried out efficiently since language miscomprehension can prevent the message from reaching the audience adequately. More specifically, the correct use of particular terms is essential in specific texts to describe concepts. These terms could be expressed differently when used in other languages and this fact could cause interferences in language communication. In this paper, the main objective was to determine if the written form of terms varied and interfered with cross-cultural communication. Furthermore, to determine the causes of term variation across languages in texts written in different languages, it is important to establish clear distinctions between the semantic fields of words. The corpus of this research was composed of twenty texts written in English and the same twenty texts written in Spanish that transmitted the agreements of the United Nations related to specific topics. They were written in the official languages of the United Nations in such a way that there was not an original or target language, they were supposedly written originally in all the languages at the same time. In order to determine if the written form of terms varied in a specific setting, the selected texts were analysed with Wordsmith Tools 5.0. First, the key words of the texts in Spanish and in English were identified, and then the written forms and the use of synonyms in Spanish and in English were compared and contrasted. The results showed that there were variations in the interpretation of terms when expressed in different languages and those may be due to cross-cultural interference.[ES] La comunicación en un entorno específico debe de realizarse de forma eficiente, puesto que una comprensión incorrecta puede producir que ciertos mensajes no lleguen a la audiencia de forma correcta. De forma más específica, el uso correcto de un término concreto es esencial en textos específicos para describir conceptos. Estos términos se pueden expresar de forma diferente cuando se usan en otras lenguas y este hecho puede causar interferencias en la comunicación lingüística. En este artículo, el objetivo principal es determinar si existe variación en la forma escrita y si este hecho pudiera interferir en la comunicación entre culturas distintas. Así mismo, determinar las causas de la variación de términos cuando se escriben en otras lenguas es importante para poder diferenciar los campos semánticos de las palabras. El corpus de esta investigación está compuesto de veinte textos escritos en inglés y en español cuyo objetivo es transmitir los acuerdos de las Naciones Unidas respecto a cuestiones específicas. Están escritos en las lenguas oficiales de las Naciones Unidas, por lo tanto, en principio no existe una lengua original y una lengua meta. Para determinar si variaba la forma escrita de términos en contextos específicos, se analizaron los textos con Wordsmith Tools 5.0. Primero identifiqué las palabras clave de los textos en inglés y castellano y a continuación comparé su forma escrita y el uso de sinónimos tanto en inglés como en castellano. Los resultados mostraron que existen variaciones en la interpretación de términos cuando se escribían en lenguas diferentes y ello podría ser debido a la interferencia entre distintas culturas.Carrió Pastor, ML. (2015). Mapping the cultural interference of term variation. Clina. 1(1):29-45. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/78079S29451

A contrastive analysis of epistemic modality in scientific English

This paper investigates the use of epistemic expressions in scientific English. The main aim of this research is to analyse if native speakers of English use epistemic modality in the same way than non-native speakers of English and to detect the most outstanding cognitive implications of this fact. The corpus used in this research contains 50 research papers written by native English speakers and 50 scientific papers written by Spanish researchers who use English to communicate internationally. As epistemic modals are used to indicate the possibility of some piece of knowledge, this paper focuses on epistemic modal verbs in order to detect if native speakers of English and non-native speakers of English communicate modality in the same way, or if there are differences in frequency and use. The results obtained in this analysis indicated that there are differences in the frequency of use of epistemic expressions, even if the intention of the writers is the same.Carrió Pastor, ML. (2012). A contrastive analysis of epistemic modality in scientific English. Revista de Lengua para fines específicos. 18:115-132. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/78138S1151321

CARTA DE LA EDITORA

Carrió Pastor, ML. (2008). CARTA DE LA EDITORA. Revista de Lingüística y Lenguas Aplicadas. 3. doi:10.4995/rlyla.2008.685SWORD

Cross-cultural variation in the use of modal verbs in academic English

The Linguistic Association of Finland was founded in 1977 to promote linguistic research and the teaching of linguistics in Finland by offering a forum for discussion, both in Finland and abroad.English academic writing has some specific characteristics that have been broadly defined by researchers. Nevertheless, English is undergoing constant modification as a result of being used as a lingua franca by international speakers. In this paper, my main objective is to determine whether language variation may be identified in cross-cultural communication when modal verbs of ability and possibility are used by speakers with different linguistic backgrounds. Furthermore, I would like to establish whether English writers tend to be more explicit than Spanish writers when both groups use English to communicate. The two corpora used in this study consisted of a set of fifty academic papers written in English by Spanish researchers and a set of fifty academic papers written in English by native English-speaking researchers. Both corpora were analysed to identify synchronic language variation in academic English when used by writers of different linguistic and cultural backgrounds. The results showed that there are disparities in the use of possibility and ability modal verbs and the conclusion reached is that writers with dissimilar mother tongues express volition through modal verbs differently in international journals.Carrió Pastor, ML. (2014). Cross-cultural variation in the use of modal verbs in academic English. Sky Journal of Linguistics. 27(1):153-166. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/78182S15316627

A proposal for the detection and classification of discourse errors

Our interest lies in error from the point of view of language in context,therefore we will focus on errors produced at the discourse level. The main objective of this paper is to detect discourse competence errors and their implications through the analysis of a corpus of English written texts produced by Higher Education students with a B1 level (following the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages). Further objectives are to propose categories which could help us to classify the different errors in the interlanguage of second language learners and to identify the causes of these errors in the different stages of second language learning in order to offer opportunities for improvement. The methodology followed is a mixed research method which includes quantitative and qualitative analyses of the corpus.Mestre-Mestre, EM.; Carrió Pastor, ML. (2013). A proposal for the detection and classification of discourse errors. Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences. 95:528-534. doi:10.1016/jsbspro.2013.10.678S5285349

Terminology in tourism 2.0: identification of the categories in user generated reviews

[ES] Este artículo se centra en el análisis de las opiniones generadas por los usuarios en sitios web de viajes y su uso de la terminología. Los objetivos de este trabajo son, en primer lugar, estudiar las categorías de términos más utilizadas en las opiniones de los usuarios; en segundo lugar, analizar el uso de préstamos y neologismos y, finalmente, identificar las diferentes palabras utilizadas por los usuarios para referirse al mismo concepto y la razón de esta variación. Para alcanzar estos objetivos, se recopiló un corpus de doscientas opiniones escritas en español por usuarios de una plata-forma en línea. Por un lado, se pro-cedió a la identificación de términos y posteriormente se clasifica-ron atendiendo a criterios semánticos y su nivel de especialización. Por otro lado, se identificaron los préstamos y neologismos del corpus, y se seleccionaron y clasifica-ron para observar la variación de los términos. Posteriormente, se ofrece una discusión de los resultaros y finalmente, se presentan las conclusiones.[FR] Cet article est centré sur l¿analyse des avis des utilisateurs des sites de voyages et leur utilisation de la terminologie. Les objectifs du travail sont, en premier lieu, l¿étude des catégories des termes les plus employés dans les avis des utilisateurs ; en second lieu, l¿analyse de l¿utilisation d¿emprunts et de néologismes et, enfin, l¿identification des mots divers utilisés par les utilisateurs pour faire référence à un même concept ainsi que la raison de cette variation. Afin d¿atteindre ces objectifs nous avons créé un corpus de deux cents avis écrits en espagnol par des utilisateurs d¿un portail en ligne. D¿un côté, nous avons procédé à l¿identification des termes, par la suite ils ont été classés selon des critères sémantiques et leur niveau de spécialisation. De l¿autre côté, les emprunts et les néologismes ont été identifiés dans le corpus, puis ils ont été sélectionnés et classés afin d¿observer la variation des termes. Une discussion des résultats est proposée ensuite en enfin les conclusions sont tirées.[EN] This paper focuses on the analysis of consumer-generated reviews in travel websites and their use of terminology. The objectives of this paper are first, to study the categories most commonly used in consumer reviews, second, to analyse the use of borrowings and neologisms in consumer reviews and finally, to identify the different words used by reviewers to refer to the same concept and the reason for this variation. In order to reach these objectives, a corpus of two hundred consumer reviews written in Spanish by users of an online platform was compiled. On the one hand, the terms were identified and classified attending to semantic criteria and their level of specialisation. On the other, the borrowings and neolo-gisms were identified in the corpus, being selected and classified in order to study the variation of terms. Then, the results were extracted and discussed and finally, conclusions were drawn.Carrió Pastor, ML.; Candel-Mora, MÁ. (2017). Terminology in tourism 2.0: identification of the categories in user generated reviews. Pragmalingüística. 25:107-123. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/108089S1071232

Introduction. Converging ways of applying corpus linguistics

Corpus analysis is an area of research that has broadened the scope of a number of different fields of language analysis. One aspect of this research is quantitative. For more than sixty years, linguists have demonstrated that language features can be counted and frequencies calculated, and that these data are useful for the interpretation and understanding of language. For this reason, corpus analysis has been used in several fields of knowledge to support or challenge hypotheses and theories. In this volume our intention is to show that corpus analysis not only deals with a large amount of numbers and quantities, it also comprises studies that consider both quantitative and qualitative analysis.Carrió Pastor, ML.; Hunston, S. (2012). Introduction. Converging ways of applying corpus linguistics. Revista Española de Lingüística Aplicada. 25(1):11-14. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/78184S111425

English as a second language: variations and pedagogical implications

Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of Academic World Education and Research Center.In this paper, English texts written by Spanish learners with B2 level of proficiency, following the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR), were contrasted with texts written by native English speakers in order to detect the most common writing changes (variations) motivated by the mother tongue of the writers. Our objective was to determine the causes of these variations in language production and to explain the pedagogical implications that could be derived from our findings. The results showed that there are differences in the texts produced by writers with different linguistic and cultural antecedents, although their language proficiency was high enough to not produce grammatical errors. The grammatical items analysed in the texts produced by native and non-native writers to look for language variation were articles, the passive voice, tenses, relative clauses, and certainty and uncertainty expressions. Most of the variations found were caused by the interference of the mother tongue, as a consequence, most of the pedagogical implications focused on avoiding these variations.Carrió Pastor, ML.; Alonso Almeida, F. (2014). English as a second language: variations and pedagogical implications. Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences. 116(1):377-381. doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.01.225S377381116

Lexical variations in business e-mails written by non-native speakers of English

The LSP Journal - Language for special purposes, professional communication, knowledge management and cognition focuses on interlinking research across these areas. The areas of research are of vital importance to the development, exchange and acceptance of new ideas and products in scientific domains as well as in trade and public services at national and international levels.English is the lingua franca used in business communication. Therefore the number of non-native speakers of English already outnumbers native speakers provided that worldwide enterprises use English for international communication. The Internet has also increased the use of English as an international language, in this way; it is used by speakers with different linguistic backgrounds. This variety of authors produces differences or variations in language use. In this paper we contrast business e-mails written by Spanish agents who work in an exporting company in India and China. Our main aim is to analyze the possible variations due to the mother tongue and the socio-cultural context and to classify lexical variation in business English used as a global working language by non-native speakers. We intended to determine the causes of variation and their influence on discourse. We analyzed and contrasted sixty e-mails written by two groups of nonnative English speakers. Group A was composed of native speakers from Pakistan and Group B was composed of native speakers from China. The corpus analysis was carried out manually. We classified the occurrences in categories depending on the cause of the variation. After the analysis, we observed that the lexical variations found were caused by sociolinguistic and cultural influences.Carrió Pastor, ML.; Muñiz Calderón, R. (2012). Lexical variations in business e-mails written by non-native speakers of English. LSP Journal - Language for special purposes, professional communication, knowledge management and cognition. 3(1):4-13. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/78139S4133