Developing MedSyn: A Corpus-Based Chinese-Italian Terminographic Resource for Healthcare Mediation

The longstanding presence of Chinese-speaking patients in Italy reflects a stable socio-demographic reality shaping access to healthcare and communicative practices in clinical settings (Scibetta & Ardizzoni, 2026). In this context, linguistic and cultural mediation plays a crucial role, yet structured terminological resources specifically designed for mediators remain limited. Existing research (Zuccheri, 2016; Lavado Puyol, 2018; Vezzani et al., 2019) provides relevant contributions, while highlighting the limited availability of corpus-based, user-oriented Chinese-Italian resources for healthcare mediation. This study presents the ongoing development of MedSyn, a digital Chinese–Italian terminographic resource designed to support mediators in communication between healthcare professionals and Sinophone patients. The framework combines corpus-based terminography and user-oriented approaches with needs-driven design. The resource is based on a corpus of online medical consultations from the Dingxiang Doctor platform, structured into twelve disciplinary subcorpora defined through alignment with the Medical Chinese Test, consistency with platform classifications, and through a mixed-method needs analysis capturing the perspectives of mediators, patients, and healthcare professionals (Whaley, 2014). The methodology adopts a corpus-based approach using Sketch Engine for terminology extraction, collocation and concordance analysis (Kilgarriff et al., 2014). Term candidates are selected according to frequency, dispersion, and cross-disciplinary relevance, and refined through user needs. Particular attention is devoted to recurrent collocational patterns and multi-word units characteristic of Chinese medical discourse. Entries include conceptual framing, bilingual definitions, interlinguistic equivalence, and metadata, validated through KWIC-based analysis and expert review, supporting the development of empirically grounded, user-oriented terminographic resources for healthcare mediation.