The resourcefulness of audio-visual materials in designing an EMP course syllabus

This paper aims at exploring new methodologies that could render students’ approach to specialised discourse original and stimulating and is based on two third year courses I held at the University of Parma, Italy, in 2015-2016 and 2016-2017, for undergraduates reading modern languages. By exploiting audio-visual materials which translate intersemiotically the language used in various kinds of texts (articles, textbooks etc.), or which try to reproduce the language spoken by specialists, the courses provided a useful testing ground for the research paths outlined here as part of a new approach to EMP teaching and learning. By referring to television series whose focus is, precisely, the language of medicine, as well as documentaries and interviews with specialists available on both television and the internet, this paper illustrates some of the activities which were used during the courses and which have proven useful to students approaching the study of English for Medical Purposes for the first time. In particular, this paper focuses on the way the medical condition of rabies is represented in (semi) specialised articles, in the television series Dr. House, M.D., and in some of the videos available on youtube (that is to say, materials to which students can easily relate), in order to analyse how these various products employ the language of medicine and, if effectively adapted by EMP teachers, could become useful tools in a learning context, simultaneously offering a valid contribution to the evolution of the interdisciplinary field of Medical Humanities.