DIFFERENT ASPECTS OF ACRONYMSIN MEDICAL TERMINOLOGY

DIFFERENT ASPECTS OF ACRONYMSIN MEDICAL TERMINOLOGY

Trajić, Jasna

Medical records, literature and encyclopedias are the most specific materials which the reader meets with. This literature, full of technical terminology, jargon and abbreviations, mostly in English language, often presents an insurmountable barrier between readers and users of medical services, on one side and the authors themselves on the other. The purity of both, English and Serbian language is disrupted by the use of vague and obscure terms and abbreviations, especially within the specialized field of medicine, in which accurate and precise communication is of great importance. Acronyms are used wherever it is technically more convenient to save some space or to avoid repeating of complicated, mostly English terms for certain phenomena, devices or diseases. As opposed to the positive aspects of the acronym usage is the fact that abbreviations, anyhow highly subjective and subject to changes and different interpretations, are often misunderstood and misinterpreted. Very often, people identify the abbreviations they „seem to know“, joining them the meaning of some other acronym from another sphere of life. The contribution of this scientific research lies in the specialized analysis of the use of medical terms, acronyms in particular, and the parallel review of new terms in both, English and Serbian medical terminology. At the same time, we tried to draw attention to all the problems that uncontrolled, improper and excessive use of acronyms bring, and in a certain way establish rules for the use and spelling standardization of acronyms and medical terms in both languages. We offered suggestions that might contribute the fight for language preservation, such as creating of thematic dictionaries or online databases that would be updated on daily bases with new acronyms and medical abbreviations. In such way, any possible confusion that could arise from the non-critical and inappropriate use of acronyms and abbreviations could be avoided.

Conference or Workshop Item
PeerReviewed

2014

3462