Perspectives on Medical English as a Lingua Franca

This edited volume brings together diverse international perspectives on the growing worldwide phenomenon of Medical English as a lingua franca, where speakers of other first languages use English as a vehicle for medical communication. A subset of the larger field of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF), only a handful of studies of healthcare ELF communication have been published previously, despite its global expansion and potential impacts upon quality healthcare and patient safety. This book is inherently interdisciplinary nature, intersecting fields such as applied linguistics, English language teaching, medical education, and healthcare communication. The contributors and their research settings represent multiple national and linguistic backgrounds, and bring perspectives from their professional lives as healthcare workers and educators, and as language teachers and researchers. This volume contributes to filling a gap at the intersection of ELF and healthcare communication, and thus represents an area of study accessible to a broad range of professionals from numerous disciplines, and one that can be of benefit to multiple stakeholders: researchers, educators, healthcare institutions, and practitioners, as well as patients and their family members. The topics discussed in these pages will be of importance to a wide audience of readers, since accurate communication is at the centre of quality healthcare delivery.