ENGLISH FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES IN MEDICAL LABORATORY PRACTICE: A CONTRASTIVE LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS OF SAFETY INSTRUCTIONS FOR SIX PPE ITEMS

Abstract

Safety instructions in Indonesian medical laboratories largely reach students in English through reagent package inserts, equipment manuals, safety data sheets, hazard labels, and wall signage issued by international manufacturers. Comprehension of this wording is therefore a safety variable and not merely a linguistic one. This study examines the English-language safety instructions attached to six items of personal protective equipment (PPE) in routine medical laboratory practice and identifies the features most likely to obstruct comprehension among Indonesian medical laboratory technology students. A descriptive qualitative design with document analysis examined the instructional wording on laboratory coats, utility gloves, safety goggles, medical face masks, safety footwear, and single-use examination gloves, along with references to international biosafety standards. The findings indicate that the imperative mood, commonly assumed to be the principal difficulty, transfers readily from Indonesian and presents little obstacle. Difficulty is concentrated instead in four areas: the modal gradient of must, shall, should and may, which flattens when mapped onto Indonesian harus; head-final nominal compounds carrying the technical specification in modifier position; low-frequency procedural verbs such as don and doff; and Dutch-derived loanwords and pseudo-anglicisms such as handscoon and sendal safety that students take to be English. The last of these is the most consequential, as it is invisible to students and to conventional language curricula alike. Treating safety instruction as a distinct text type in English for Specific Purposes teaching supports the prevention of occupational accidents and hazardous exposure and sustains an orderly laboratory environment consistent with service standards.