Research groups

Research groups at the Department of Languages for Specific Purposes

Our researchers, research teams and international partners undertake interprofessional, empirical, data-based, machine and manual analysis of health communication. We investigate patient-centered medical communication and terminology and, in close collaboration with medical professionals, we develop language strategies that support the development of medical terminology and patient-centered communication.

Softwares used for researches

Title	Terminological examination of injury-related medical documentation
Principal investigator	Katalin Fogarasi Ph.D., habil. – Zoltán Patonai Dr. Med., Ph.D. (Pécs University, Clinical Center, Department of Traumatology and Hand Surgery)
Co-researcher	Attila Gátos Dr. Med., Ph.D. Magdolna Pálinkás (Ph.D. student) Viktória Sirokmány (Ph.D. student)
Short description	The interprofessional research group focuses on multilingual, contrastive terminological analysis of medical, dental, and pediatric documentation generated during the care of accidents and assaults. The aim of the research is to reveal and categorize documentation mistakes and their terminological causes, as well as work out guidelines for improving the quality of documentation.
Language	Hungarian, German, English

Title	Examination of diagnosis disclosure and oral patient-information in GP consultations using the methodology of terminology and linguistic conversation analysis
Principal investigator	Katalin Fogarasi Ph.D., habil. – Prof. Dr. Péter Torzsa (Semmelweis University, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Family Medicine)
Co-researcher	Anikó Hambuchné Kőhalmi Ph.D. (Pécs University, Medical School, Department of Languages for Biomedical Purposes and Communication) Renáta Halász (Pécs University, Medical School, Department of Languages for Biomedical Purposes and Communication) Rita Kránicz Ph.D. (Pécs University, Medical School, Department of Languages for Biomedical Purposes and Communication) Dániel Mány Ph.D. Andrea Keresztélyné Barta Ph.D. Enikő Földesi (Semmelweis University, Faculty of Medicine, Institute of Behavioural Sciences)
Short description	The aim of the interprofessional research group is to examine the terminology and communication strategies of code switching required for patient-centered diagnosis disclosure in GP consultations, and to implement the results directly in the interprofessional practical course “Linguistic aspects of patient-centered diagnosis disclosure”. Conversation analysis is based on the software-aided and manual analysis of audio texts and the examination of the automatically created and manually checked transcripts of the texts, including metadata.
Language	Hungarian

Title	Intercultural communication in healthcare
Principal investigator	Alexandra Bakó
Co-researcher	Barbara Marshall Ph.D.
Short description	The aim of the research is to develop a language teaching methodology which prepares students for intercultural medical communication and using English as a lingua franca. During the research, which relies on theory and teaching practice, validated teaching and assessment materials are developed.
Language	English

Title	Patient-centred communication
Principal investigator	Barbara Marshall Ph.D.
Co-researcher	Alexandra Bakó
Short description	Exploring the application of person-centred communication theory and background studies in the practice of patient-centred communication, and developing teaching methodological strategies based on classroom research.
Language	English

Title	Improving the speaking and comprehension skills of students of Hungarian medical and dentistry terminology
Principle investigator	Mónika Schmidtné Putz Ph.D.
Co-researcher	Hortenzia Halász
Short description	The research deals with error analysis based on machine-transcribed audio recordings of exam situations while examining the role of Hungarian vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation in the speech product of non-Hungarian students in terms of intelligibility. Intelligibility and comprehension is assessed on a three-grade scale, revealing correlations. The aim is to make empirical data-based teaching of terminology more efficient, and to develop the teaching material and the successful clinical communication of the students, as well as to support the legitimacy and necessity of terminology teaching from a zero level.
Language	Hungarian

Title	Terminological and sociopragmatic examination of written and oral patient information texts
Principal investigator	Katalin Fogarasi Ph.D., habil. Dániel Mány Ph.D.
Co-researcher	Éva Katalin Varga Ph.D.
Short description	During the research written or spoken Hungarian texts are collected, a text corpus is constructed and analyzed in an empirical, qualitative and quantitative way. In the course of the research, the focus will be on exploring and describing the characteristics of patient satisfaction and patient-centered doctor-patient communication, and later integrating them into education with the help of MemoQ, Sketch Engine and Alrite softwares.
Language	Hungarian, English, German, French

Title	Taboo and euphemism in health translation, interpretation and in languages for medical purposes
Principal investigator	Dániel Mány Ph.D.
Co-researcher	Andrea Pizarro Pedraza Ph.D. (Université Saint Louis Bruxelles)
Short description	The research attempts to describe the strategy and characteristics of information transfer during physician-patient communication, concentrating on the emotional dimension of lay patients, and the importance of euphemism and taboo. The research is conducted in an intercultural and interdisciplinary framework with corpus building, and qualitative and quantitative analysis of authentic and translated oral and written texts in Hungarian, English, French and Spanish.
Language	Hungarian, English, French, Spanish

Title	Patient safety and communication in a multicultural and multilingual healthcare environment
Principal investigator	Ágnes Horváth
Co-researcher	Gábor Pörzse Dr. Med., Ph.D. Péter Molnár Ágnes Csorvási Dr. Med. Anna Júlia Szákács
Short description	The research examines how interpreters and translators are involved in healthcare services in different countries, in order to provide equal opportunities, a safe environment and high- quality services for patients not speaking the local language. A pre-defined set of criteria, personal interviews and questionnaires are applied to map the strategies used in each country. The aim of the research is to develop theoretical and practical teaching materials for the training of translators and interpreters in health sciences, and to collect useful international teaching strategies for Hungarian adaptation.
Language	Hungarian, English, German, French

Title	Translation of written medical genres
Principal investigator	Ágnes Horváth (Semmelweis University)
Co-researcher	Katalin Fogarasi Ph.D., habil. (Semmelweis University), Alexandra Vivien Bakó (Semmelweis University), Dániel Mány Ph.D. (Semmelweis University), Csilla Keresztes, Ph.D., habil. (University of Szeged), Andrea Stötzer (University of Szeged), Réka Csenki-Bozsó (University of Szeged), Zsuzsanna Szűcs (University of Szeged), Balázs Sinkovics Ph.D. (University of Szeged)
Short description	The aim of this genre research is to provide teaching materials and translation guidelines for the documents most commonly used in healthcare, or documents whose translation would be much needed for patient rights or for effective day-to-day communication.
Language	Hungarian, English, German, Latin

Title	Examination of archived autopsy reports
Principal investigator	Katalin Fogarasi Ph.D., habil. Dániel Ittzés Ph.D.
Co-researcher	Mária Szabó Ph.D. Dr. Attila Zalatnai (Semmelweis University, Faculty of Medicine, 1^st Department of Pathology and Experimental Cancer Research)
Short description	The research examines the terminology of autopsy reports from the 19^th and 20^th centuries using corpus linguistics methods. The Hungarian descriptions and the Latin diagnoses are also compared with today’s medical documents. The aim is to describe the language usage of both languages in the archived reports, to compile a terminology database based on diachronic examinations and to publish the handwritten reports.
Language	Hungarian, Latin

Title	Terminology Methodology Research Group
Principal investigator	Andrea Keresztélyné Barta Ph.D.
Co-researcher	Éva Katalin Varga Ph.D. Katalin Fogarasi Ph.D., habil.
Short description	The aim of the research group is to create an innovative medical terminology teaching material based on the latest research results, with special regard to the characteristics and differences of the Hungarian, English and German medical languages. Our scientific research done prior to the development of teaching material in the fields of Latin anatomical nomenclature, authentic clinical documentation and pharmaceutical terminology is aimed at transferring knowledge that can be used immediately at the patient bedside.
Language	Hungarian, English, German

Title	Anatomical Names Research Group
Principal investigator	Éva Katalin Varga Ph.D.
Co-researcher	Andrea Keresztélyné Barta Ph.D., Alexandra Bíró (demonstrator)
Short description	The aim of the research group is to collect Hungarian anatomical names in a terminological database, to unify the anatomical names of descriptive anatomy and clinical fields, and to detect the missing anatomical names based on the analysis of medical texts (textbooks, journal articles, patient information leaflets) and medical documents, taking into account the changes in the Latin international anatomical nomenclature, then implement the results directly into education and make recommendations to professionals for unhindered doctor-patient communication.
Language	Hungarian, Latin

Title	Hospital Documentation Research Group
Principal investigator	Éva Katalin Varga Ph.D.
Co-researcher	Katalin Fogarasi Ph.D., habil. Zoltán Patonai Dr. Med., Ph.D. (Pécs University, Clinical Center) Tünde Vágási Ph.D.
Short description	The aim of the research group is to stylistically and terminologically analyze the text genres of hospital documentation, to examine and collect the database of conventionalized terminological phrases, and then implement the results into the teaching of general medical and specialist terminology, writing and keeping medical documentation, and modern medical languages.
Language	Hungarian, Latin

Title	The Determinologization/transfer of Medical Terminology into Colloquial Language
Principal investigator	Éva Katalin Varga Ph.D.
Co-researcher	Emese Márton Balázs Indig Ph.D. (Eötvös Loránd University, Department of Digital Humanities), Gábor Palkó Ph.D., habil. (Eötvös Loránd University, Department of Digital Humanities), Zsófia Sárközi-Lindner (Eötvös Loránd University, Department of Digital Humanities)
Short description	The aim of the research group, in collaboration with the Department of Digital Humanities of Eötvös Loránd University, is to observe and describe the emergence and integration of new terms, to provide a corpus-based analysis of the accelerated determinologization of medical terminology related to the Covid-19 pandemic and the ongoing processes in the medical terminology of the Transylvanian language versions based on the text corpora (Covid corpus and Transylvanian news corpus) created by the Eötvös Loránd University – Department of Digital Humanities, containing articles from Internet news portals.
Language	Hungarian

Title	Content-Based Curriculum Development (CLIL) Research Group
Principal investigator	Viktória Sirokmány, Éva Katalin Varga Ph.D.
Co-researcher	Katalin Fogarasi Ph.D., habil.
Short description	The research group examines the methodology of content-based language teaching and the development of CLIL-based teaching materials. CLIL focuses on the application of the method in a higher education environment. Analyzing the structure of the curriculum and exam tasks developed for the medical language courses, Semmelweis University develops guidelines to support the teaching of modern languages applying the principles of the CLIL methodology.
Language	English, Hungarian, German, Russian

Title	Developing Communication in Healthcare
Principal investigator	Tímea Takács
Co-researcher	Daniel Czar, Katalin Fogarasi Ph.D., habil., Viktória Sirokmány
Short description	The research focuses on the development of healthcare professional-patient communication and the involvement of native speakers as simulated patients in the English for health and medical sciences language classes. With the help of simulated patients, needs analyses, case studies, error analyses, (self) evaluation sheets, discourse analyses, new teaching materials and role-plays are created.
Language	English