Uploaded January 2021 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
The English language, like all of us, has had to adapt rapidly and repeatedly this year due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Has our ability to communicate important health messages evolved equally fast? And what are the challenges faced when new medical terminology needs to be used within many varieties of English, and also with non-English speakers?
Dr Danica Salazar, OED World English Editor, and Richard Karl Deang, PhD candidate at the University of Virginia, presented an interactive online talk that combined insights from medical anthropology and lexicography to address the following questions:
• What new terms are in current use in different parts of the world to refer to Covid-19 and related public health measures, and what social realities do these words reveal?
• What have we learned from our experiences with other global health crises, including the only other current global pandemic, HIV/AIDS? How can we use these lessons to ensure more effective health communication as we continue to deal with Covid-19 and face the prospect of future pandemics?
• What considerations need to be made in crafting accurate and locally appropriate translations of Covid-19 terminology from English, the dominant language of global health? This section will draw from Oxford Languages’ experience with the Covid-19 Multilingual Project, which provides freely available translations of key Covid-19 terms from English to 19 different languages to support local initiatives to deliver critical health advice to vulnerable communities around the world.
Who is this for?
• Linguists
• Lexicographers
• Public and global health practitioners
• Medical and linguistic anthropologists
• Anyone who works with (or is interested in) health communication and translation
• Anyone interested in how languages evolve
The English language, like all of us, has had to adapt rapidly and repeatedly this year due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Has our ability to communicate important health messages evolved equally fast? And what are the challenges faced when new medical terminology needs to be used within many varieties of English, and also with non-English speakers?
Dr Danica Salazar, OED World English Editor, and Richard Karl Deang, PhD candidate at the University of Virginia, presented an interactive online talk that combined insights from medical anthropology and lexicography to address the following questions:
• What new terms are in current use in different parts of the world to refer to Covid-19 and related public health measures, and what social realities do these words reveal?
• What have we learned from our experiences with other global health crises, including the only other current global pandemic, HIV/AIDS? How can we use these lessons to ensure more effective health communication as we continue to deal with Covid-19 and face the prospect of future pandemics?
• What considerations need to be made in crafting accurate and locally appropriate translations of Covid-19 terminology from English, the dominant language of global health? This section will draw from Oxford Languages’ experience with the Covid-19 Multilingual Project, which provides freely available translations of key Covid-19 terms from English to 19 different languages to support local initiatives to deliver critical health advice to vulnerable communities around the world.
Who is this for?
• Linguists
• Lexicographers
• Public and global health practitioners
• Medical and linguistic anthropologists
• Anyone who works with (or is interested in) health communication and translation
• Anyone interested in how languages evolve
