A brief overview of general topics of language-words as the tools for recognition, words to label phenomena, and words to convey concepts-was initially presented. Then the major issues concerning language for nursing science were discussed, focused on four issues: 1) characteristics of technical terms, 2) the nature and problem of loan words, 3) a trend of language used in nursing society in our country, and 4) ICN project on international classification for nursing practice.
Three future tasks were suggested from these discussions. First, we must try to put our daily nursing activities into words. It could be allowed to create new words when needed. If the word is truly needed, then it will become generally accepted after a while. Second, we should not hesitate to use loan words related to nursing. Learning the cultural background of these words and making them root deeply into our culture will be more productive. Third, we need to conceptualize nursing phenomena in terms of clients' personal experiences or their realities. In other words,we need to give clear and comprehensible expressions to what they are experiencing.
