A bilingual terminological database (English to Maltese) related to the area of diabetes

Abstract

At a very young age, medicine greatly interested me; however, I had never had the opportunity to further my studies in the sciences. This is why my interest towards terminology grew, I took the opportunity to explore something new through my studies. Dealing with scientific terminology was quite a challenge for me, since I had never studied any science subjects; nevertheless, I was willing to learn and overcome this new challenge. Diabetes is one of the most common health conditions in the world, and its prevalence is ever increasing; as a matter of fact, it has affected my own personal life, since it runs in both sides of my family, hence why I decided to undertake terminological work related to this disease. This dissertation presents a collection of 150 terms related to diabetes, translated from English to Maltese, aimed for use in professional writings and medical translations. The terminological database was compiled and analysed with the use of bilingual dictionaries, medical dictionaries, specialised texts, as well as help from consultants. Although the terms in this research have been collected and created through intensive investigation and analysis, the study requires further analysis in more depth, in order to be thoroughly scrutinised and standardised. For this reason, the completed work in this dissertation is not definite, and should be taken upon by experts in the medical field, as well as linguists, to evaluate the term base and draw up conclusions regarding the standardisation of each term. I hope that this research will be useful for the Maltese medical vocabulary, for it to be broadened and established. The first chapter of this dissertation provides a summary and a general review of the disease, the way it develops, and its various types. The chapter then introduces terminology, highlighting its meaning and its use in the language field. It identifies and distinguishes the differences between general and special languages, and then focused on medical terminology. The final part of this chapter briefly covers standardisation, including standardisation institutions and their aims. The second chapter presents the methodology adopted in this research study and during the collection of the terms. It provides a detailed description of the process used during the study, including standardised norms, which were listed step-by-step, as followed all the way during the research. The chapter also outlines the structure used for the documentation of each term, including an explanation of the terminological record. The term base itself makes up the third chapter, which includes a meticulously detailed analysis on how each and every term was chosen or created. The concluding chapter outlines certain challenging terms which were tackled during the study, including some limitations and proposals which could develop and improve the study.