1,720,979 research outputs found
John Pechey (1654–1718) and the Popularization of Learned Medicine
No full textThis essay offers a corpus-based linguistic analysis of the paratexts of the works of John Pechey (1654–1718), a licentiate physician and prolificmedical author and popularizer, whose ideas and practice brought him into conflict with the Royal College of Physicians. Following the methodology of corpus-assisted discourse analysis, historical discourse analysis, and historical sociopragmatics, the essay analyses the paratextual material of Pechey’s medical publications, with the aims of (a) collecting a corpus of texts published under his name, (b) assessing his role in the popularization of learned medicine, and (c) tracing how he constructed and performed his identity both as a knowledgeable medical practitioner and as a critic of the beliefs and practices of the Royal College of Physicians
Translating Latin Medicine in Late-Seventeenth-Century England: Discursive Aspects and Popularizing Strategies
Full text linkThis paper provides a detailed analysis of the anonymous The Expert Doctors Dispensatory (1657), Bazilica Chymica & Praxis Chymiatricæ (1670) and The Compleat Method of Curing Almost All Diseases (1694), the English translations of three recipe collections which were first published in Latin and, therefore, meant to be circulated among the European medical elite. Following historical pragmatic and historical discourse analytic methodologies, it studies the macro- and microtextual translation methods and procedures, in order to understand to what extent and how the texts accommodated their specialized content to their target audience, namely literate lay readers. The investigation showed that, although the dominant translation method seems to be literal translation, the texts also made extensive use of such accommodating translation procedures as reformulations and partial adaptation, whose purpose is that of creating a version of the source text which might be more acceptable for its target audience, thus granting accessibility and, therefore, playing a fundamental role in the democratization of learned medicine
GATE: an Italian-English glossary of the language of academic administrations
Full text linkThe European Union’s policy of multilingualism and intra-EU mobility, which is also reflected at the academic level in such exchange programs as Erasmus+ and Horizon2020, and excellence awards such as the HR Excellence in Research Award, has resulted in the need for a number of academic institutions to make their administrative documents accessible to international audiences. This has been accomplished mostly by translating all relevant texts, which include official charters, codes, regulations, calls, contracts, forms and web pages, to name but a few, into English, the de facto lingua franca of academia. However, since the documents produced by Italian academic administrations, not unlike those written by the public administration, are characterized by high levels of complexity, especially at the lexical level, translation into English may become a burdensome task. The present paper reports on the construction and describes the main features of an Italian-English glossary of the most salient technical terms and phrasal expressions typical of academic-administrative language (GATE, i.e. Glossary of Academic-administrative Terms and Expressions) which was developed at the University of Insubria with the aim of providing a partial solution to this problem. The glossary wordlist was compiled making use of corpus linguistic methods from a corpus of 63 documents (and their English translations) produced by the academic administration and covering a wide variety of academic-administrative genres. Although developed specifically for a particular academic institution, the glossary, which provides a translation for a total of 508 entries among single-word and multi-word items that are characteristic of supra-local academic-administrative language, may be a useful resource for all Italian research institutions aiming at internationalizing their documents and aligning their policies to EU standards
“Fall wheat”, “hard frost” and “heavy showers”. An investigation into the phraseology of early Canadian English
No full textThe paper investigates the phraseology typical of early Canadian English, by analyzing the most frequent 2-grams that emerge from a second-generation corpus of manuscript ego-documents written in rural Ontario, Canada, in the 19th and early-20th centuries – the Corpus of Canadian English Letters and Diaries (CCanDL). The analysis, which was conducted following a mixed-method approach that combines quantitative and qualitative methods, sheds light on the phraseology specific to early Canadian English, paying particular attention to what clues this gives to early Canadian culture and identity and to the distinct worldview that emerges from it
‘The bilingual problem’. Nationalism and the language question in Canada (1791–1915)
No full textAlthough English and French now have equal status in Canada, bilingualism and the language question have been the cause of heated debates in the history of the country, which, since the Treaty of Paris of 1763, has been characterised by the close coexistence of two profoundly different social groups, one francophone and Roman Catholic, the other anglophone and Protestant. While the foundations for present-day bilingualism were implicitly laid by the Constitutional Act of 1791 and reiterated in the Constitution Act of 1867, it was the English language, and the British model, that continued to be promoted as the official language of government. Moreover, during the late-19th and early-20th centuries a number of legislative acts across Canada restricted French-language education and the use of French itself outside of Quebec. As the popular media have always played an important role in representing, shaping and guiding public opinion, the paper investigates, following the methodologies of historical discourse analysis and historical sociopragmatics, the extent to which the language question surfaced in some of the most popular English language magazines published in Canada between the late-18th and early-20th centuries, and, specifically, how the relationship between language and nation was framed and discussed in such publications
Translating Latin Medicine in Late-Seventeenth-Century England: Discursive Aspects and Popularizing Strategies.
No full textThis paper provides a detailed analysis of the anonymous The Expert Doctors Dispensatory (1657), Bazilica Chymica & Praxis Chymiatricæ (1670) and The Compleat Method of Curing Almost All Diseases (1694), the English translations of three recipe collections which were first published in Latin and, therefore, meant to be circulated among the European medical elite. Following historical pragmatic and historical discourse analytic methodologies, it studies the macro- and microtextual translation methods and procedures, in order to understand to what extent and how the texts accommodated their specialized content to their target audience, namely literate lay readers. The investigation showed that, although the dominant translation method seems to be literal translation, the texts also made extensive use of such accommodating translation procedures as reformulations and partial adaptation, whose purpose is that of creating a version of the source text which might be more acceptable for its target audience, thus granting accessibility and, therefore, playing a fundamental role in the democratization of learned medicine
Changing terminology and discourse in the representation of older people in the UK and US lay press
No full textAs the Western population becomes increasingly older, past definitions and concepts of old age no longer apply. Words which once used to be neutral are nowadays felt to be at least unrepresentative, if not downright offensive, thus both the specialized and the lay community are looking for new terms that defy ageist practices to refer to a relatively new demographic group, the ‘young-old’, which collects people aged between 55 and 75, who are retired, relatively healthy, and active. The paper aims at tracking the evolution over the last thirty years of the terms that refer to the oldest section of the population in the popular press, by analyzing a corpus of articles published by The New York Times and The Guardian between 1989 and 2018. The study follows the methodology of corpus-assisted discourse analysis, making use of both quantitative and qualitative methods, with specific insights into aging discourse studies. Although negative stereotypes still seem to be pervasive in media language, the analysis revealed how old age terminology has changed in the last few decades to accommodate to today’s older people and their wish to be referred to in more representative and respectful terms
‘For the Benefit of those who Understand not the Latine Tongue’. The vernacularization of medicine in late-seventeenth-century England
No full textThe 1650s, opened by the publication of Nicholas Culpeper’s unlicensed translation of the Pharmacopoeia Londinensis (1649), have been described as a key moment for the vernacular medical publishing market, with a decisive increase in the number of medical books printed in English. This paper aims at providing a survey of the state-of-the-art of medical popularization in the second half of the seventeenth century, by looking exclusively at English translations of learned Latin texts. As rendering a text in the vernacular means making it virtually accessible to all who could read, translations represent a first step towards what has been defined as the democratization of learned medical knowledge. Following a critical discourse analytic and historical pragmatic approach, this study offers an overview of the context of production of these learned translations, with a particular focus on the authors, their target readers and declarations of intents. Some reflections on the texts as specific genres are also offered. Finally, as four of the texts contain glossaries of hard words and technical terms, intended as further strategies to render specialized medical knowledge accessible to a wider reading public, the paper presents a close lexicographic description of these resources. The analysis shows that these translations, mostly compiled by a group of medical professionals in conflict with the established authority of the Royal College of Physicians and their principles, contributed in all effects to the democratization process, as they mainly targeted lay people with the aim of spreading knowledge to the less privileged
‘For the Benefit of those who Understand not the Latine Tongue’. The vernacularization of medicine in late-seventeenth-century England.
No full textThe 1650s, opened by the publication of Nicholas Culpeper’s unlicensed translation of the Pharmacopoeia Londinensis (1649), have been described as a key moment for the vernacular medical publishing market, with a decisive increase in the number of medical books printed in English. This paper aims at providing a survey of the state-of-the-art of medical popularization in the second half of the seventeenth century, by looking exclusively at English translations of learned Latin texts. As rendering a text in the vernacular means making it virtually accessible to all who could read, translations represent a first step towards what has been defined as the democratization of learned medical knowledge. Following a critical discourse analytic and historical pragmatic approach, this study offers an overview of the context of production of these learned translations, with a particular focus on the authors, their target readers and declarations of intents. Some reflections on the texts as specific genres are also offered. Finally, as four of the texts contain glossaries of hard words and technical terms, intended as further strategies to render specialized medical knowledge accessible to a wider reading public, the paper presents a close lexicographic description of these resources. The analysis shows that these translations, mostly compiled by a group of medical professionals in conflict with the established authority of the Royal College of Physicians and their principles, contributed in all effects to the democratization process, as they mainly targeted lay people with the aim of spreading knowledge to the less privileged
“The Parent of Health and Long Life”. Food and the Popularization of Learned Medicine in Late-seventeenth-century England
Full text linkAlthough newer approaches, including the Paracelsian one, also started to gain more prominence, late-seventeenthcentury medicine was still largely based upon the Hippocratic-Galenic system, where the relationship between nutrition, health and well-being occupied a prominent position. Indeed, food was included among Galen’s six “non-naturals”, that is, the activities that need to be regulated to balance the humors in the body and, consequently, to preserve (and in some cases also restore) health. Moreover, the distinction between food and drug was only pragmatic, as, because of their therapeutic properties, several kinds of foodstuff also appear among the simples and in the ingredients lists of compound remedies in all materia medica and receptaria. Following the methodology of Historical Discourse Analysis, the paper investigates how the relationship between food and wellbeing was presented and represented in a corpus of general medical handbooks that were translated from Latin
into English in the late seventeenth century with the purpose of rendering learned medical notions accessible to a wider English-speaking audience, thus shedding light on dominant discourses on food and nutrition and their role in the promotion of well-being in early modern medicine
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