Affiliation:
1. University of Arizona
2. Rutgers University
3. Portland State University
4. Princeton Healthcare Center
Abstract
Abstract
Much of the corpus-based research on medical discourse has focused on “involved” language (e.g., 1st person pronouns,
discourse markers) and its importance in creating patient rapport (Adolphs, Brown, Carter, Crawford,
& Sahota, 2004; Skelton & Hobbes, 1999; Staples, 2016). However, in the broader literature on health care interactions, providers’ information provision is equally
important in patient-centered care (Ong, de Haes, Joos, & Lammes, 1995). This paper
investigates the ways in which providers and patients use informational language in medical discourse using multidimensional analysis (MDA;
Biber, 1988). We first examine three corpora of medical interactions and then focus a new MDA
on one type of interaction that requires more informational language use: discussions of disease and treatment options. The analysis
revealed multifaceted aspects of information provision that differ depending on the nature of the information, including providers’
procedural information for medical treatment and impersonal information provision for explaining the disease.
Publisher
John Benjamins Publishing Company