DERECHO A LA SALUD Y A LA MATERNIDAD

The participants in scientific and technical discourse can also be approached from multiple perspectives, for example sociological or psychological, allowing statements about the participants’ social status, their personal relation, their cultural backgrounds, intellectual capacities, etc. (see Roelcke 32010:19-20). The perspective that I will focus on is the subject-matter competence of the discourse participants with regard to the topic of the discourse, which can result in a symmetrical or an asymmetrical communicative situation. A symmetrical communicative situation, from the perspective of professional competence, would be expert-to-expert communication in the same field or intra-disciplinary communication (Möhn 1979). Asymmetrical communicative situations would arise in expert-to-expert communication in a different field/inter-disciplinary communication or in expert-to-layperson communication/extra-disciplinary communication.26

26 _{The notion of expert is a constant in this classification since, as Vargas (2005:306, referring to Cabré}

1999:153-154) points out, “only those participants who have a specific knowledge in a professional field acquired through learning can produce and intervene in the production-reception process of a specialised communication.” This means that, in order to be qualified as specialized communication, the author or

dimensions of intra-disciplinary, inter-disciplinary and extra-disciplinary communication form the well-known triad of specialized communication established in LSP research (see Roelcke 32010:20).27

Although this classification is widely accepted in LSP research and translation studies, it is also slightly problematic. When we compare two or more discourse participants with regard to their subject-matter competence, this competence is always established with reference to a given topic, usually the topic of the discourse in which the participants engage. However, the discourse topic, relative to which the subject-matter competence of the participants is established, only serves as a point of reference in expert-to-expert/intra- disciplinary and in expert-to-layperson/extra-disciplinary communication. In expert-to- expert communication in a different field/inter-disciplinary communication, on the other hand, the focus is shifted from the discourse topic to a somewhat detached comparison of the general subject-matter competence of the discourse participants. However, if we want to retain the subject matter underlying a given discourse as a fixed reference point, we should probably introduce a change of terminology and label this mode of communication

expert-to-semi-expert communication instead, thus making it clear that we establish their subject-matter competence with reference to the discourse topic (this is in line with Vargas’ (2005:307) approach to the issue). One participant in this form of discourse would then be a full subject-matter expert in the topic at hand, while the other participant would be a semi-expert in this topic.28

This three-fold classification of expert-to-expert, expert-to-semi-expert and expert-to- layperson communication is obviously rather coarse-grained (i.e. there is a continuum of

This would also allow us to get rid of the cumbersome prepositional phrases in the same field and in a different field, thus making the English designations more concise.

speaker must have expert status with regard to the topic covered, while the subject-matter competence of the recipients may vary.

27 _{This three-fold classification was first proposed in German LSP research (Möhn 1979) and therefore has a}

fixed terminology in German (fachinterne, interfachliche and fachexterne Kommunikation). In English LSP research, such a straightforward terminology seems to be lacking, thus requiring somewhat cumbersome paraphrases such as expert-to-expert communication in the same field/in a different field or loantranslations such as inter- and intra-disciplinary communication, which are not widely used in the English literature on the topic.

28 _{Usually because s/he is a full expert in another field which overlaps to a considerable extent with the field}

degree of competency between expert, semi-expert and layperson) but it captures three prototypical communicative scenarios in scientific and technical discourse and translation that are relevant from a theoretical and a practical perspective alike. From a theoretical point of view, expert-to-expert communication may, for example, exhibit a stronger lexical or syntactic compression as compared to expert-to-layperson communication. From a practical point of view, this translates into the fact that the translator may need a higher degree of subject-matter knowledge when translating expert-to-expert discourse.

It remains to be pointed out that, moving from expert-to-layperson to expert-to-expert communication, the group of intended recipients becomes increasingly smaller. While the layperson audience in expert-to-layperson communication can be a potentially very large and heterogeneous group of intended recipients, expert-to-expert communication generally takes places within much smaller, more homogeneous and more sharply delimited discourse communities (Göpferich 1995:311). In the same vein, the knowledge required to take part in the three modes of communication above becomes increasingly specialized and well-delimited moving toward the expert-to-expert pole.29