The manual comprehensively presents a number of key topics and contexts within the area of Academic English for healthcare and medical purposes and discusses the origins and evolution of some of the major field-specific concepts. The manual is designed to develop such academic skills as speaking, reading, writing and translating through thematic reading. The practical tasks, concise research questions and discussion points included, will add to the enhancement of the communicative competencies of the learners. Aimed at upper intermediate and advanced postgraduate students of English, this manual can also serve as a useful reference resource for medical students studying domain-specific English, students of translation studies, teachers of Academic English for Specific Purposes, as well as professional language course designers at various universities.

The present paper aims at discussing certain metaphors which name diseases resembling specialty-specific signs manifested in different occupations. An attempt is made towards showcasing the cognitive value that metaphor entails when used in a clinical setting to verbalize different diseases. Stedman’s Medical Dictionary – currently the most content-rich medical dictionary – has served a major reference point for the analysis of specialty-specific metaphors in Medicine.

Medicine contributes to every person’s health in terms of diagnosis, treatment or prevention of a disease. Hence, constructing the clinical picture and the diagnosis of a health condition and conveying complex technical information in a comprehensible language is of utmost importance. In this regard, medical professionals rely not only on Greco-Latin terms of Classical times, but also resort to metaphors to illuminate many facets of medical observations and clinical findings. These metaphors stem either from anthropomorphic or zoomorphic areas and act as primary interface between scientific thought and understanding. From this perspective, the present article examines the value of metaphor in medicine and through the employment of descriptive method, explores some of the most widespread zoomorphic metaphors, which denominate certain facial anomalies.

This article offers an overview on the usage of technological metaphors in medicine, and in Neuroanatomy in particular. Exploring major technological metaphors surrounding human brain and nervous system, the paper aims at illustrating the cognitive functions these metaphors have in communicating clinical phenomena and pathologies. The neuroanatomical section in the “Gray’s Anatomy” – the clinical Bible of medicine – has served a major reference point for the analysis of metaphors.

There is a universally acknowledged truth that the medical lexis is largely composed of Greco-Latin vocabulary. There is also a general assumption that health professionals supposedly possess no other relevant linguistic means but the Greco-Latin terms to communicate clinically specific information. In a postmodernist approach, however, there is an ‘assault’ on this dogmatic view. To the postmodern eye, the truth is pluralistic; diverting opinions are embraced when constructing this truth. And if postmodernist approach welcomes pluralism and open-mindedness in composing this information, then health professionals may well construct the evidence-based information through various linguistic devices, rather than relying exclusively on fixed terminology and concepts of Latin and Greek origin. This means that the evidence-based medical and clinical information may be communicated, inter alia, by such constructs as metaphors and metaphoric expressions.