The building blocks of medical discourse. A function-and-corpus driven approach to ESP

This contribution is about the functionality of multi-word lexical items in teaching medical English. Corpus and text studies have shown how much of the language we use consists of multi-word phrases or lexical chunks. Medical English, like all other varieties of ESP, is highly phraseological and draws on a large stock of prefabricated or semi-prefabricated linguistic composites used to fulfil different functions in discourse. Therefore, it is up to the teacher to raise the students’ awareness of the lexical nature of the texts being analysed. Medical English learning may best be improved by encouraging students to develop their ability to select lexical chunks that are significant and useful to them. The focus on lexis involves activities targeted at noticing, recording and recycling language items which are typical of medical discourse. An electronic lexical notebook may be a useful tool for storing lexis and working cooperatively.