Latin as a tool for social differentiation and epistemic asymmetry

The paper aims to present the outcome of a research on the persistence of Latin in Medical Language. The analysis has been carried out on written and spoken data: clinical records; doctor-patient interactions; prescriptions; package information leaflets. The study shows that in medical communication Latin is used as a tool for social and epistemic discrimination, to increase the knowledge gap among professionals and lay people. A different way to reaffirm the voice of medicine against the voice of life. Our project is inserted in the series of studies dedicated to languages for specific purposes understood not only as specific vocabularies but mostly as “discursive patterns” that express precise and distinctive professional visions.