CORPUS-BASED ANALYSIS OF BIOMEDICAL ABSTRACTS FOR MEDICAL ENGLISH PEDAGOGY
CORPUS-BASED ANALYSIS OF BIOMEDICAL ABSTRACTS FOR MEDICAL ENGLISH PEDAGOGY

Summary/Abstract: Corpus linguistics provides empirically grounded insights into the pedagogy of abstract writing in Medical English, offering a more evidence-based and rhetorically informed alternative to mechanical, prescriptive approaches. This study applies a speciality-specific corpus methodology to examine key linguistic features of biomedical abstracts in a corpus of 48 original research article abstracts published in the Intensive Care Medicine journal (ICM) between January and October 2024. The analysis focuses on the use of passive voice and nominalisations, with a view to their exploitation in Medical English teaching, given the conflicting recommendations journals and publishers provide regarding these features. Although style manuals advise against passive constructions and nominalisations, the present findings demonstrate that these features are frequently employed in this specialised corpus of intensive care medicine, often preferred over alternative constructions. Current tendencies should inform Medical English instruction, where pedagogical recommendations benefit from actual language use and academic writing practice.

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