Medical terminology development in under-resourced languages: Quest for functionality and pursuit for cognition on online communities

Abstract

This article explores how medical and health care terminology is developed and understood in two under-resourced languages, Zimbabwean isiNdebele and chiShona, in online communities, on platforms like Facebook and WhatsApp. Grounded in the communicative theory of terminology (CTT), the study analyses health-related posts and discussions to explore how speakers create and adapt terms in the absence of standardised vocabulary. Using netnography as a research methodology, data was collected through purposive sampling of health-related advertisements and discussions posted in African languages across selected online communities. Findings reveal that users employ strategies such as borrowing, transliteration, literal translation and semantic broadening. These strategies are shaped by the users’ cognitive familiarity with English, often their second language, and by the cultural and linguistic structures of the target languages. Borrowing and transliteration emerge as the most cognitively effective strategies, while semantic broadening, though linguistically rich, can present challenges in clarity and interpretation. The study underscores that social media term creation is driven more by functional communicative needs than by linguistic purity or standardisation. It concludes that effective terminology in these contexts must balance cognitive accessibility, cultural appropriateness and communicative clarity as these under-resourced languages move towards intellectualisation through diverse online communities.