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A Pragmatic Agenda for Healthcare
Fostering inclusion and active participation through shared understanding
This volume addresses the issue of pragmatic meaning and interpretation in communication contexts regarding health and does so by combining a series of diverse and complementary approaches, which together highlight the relevance of successfully shared understanding to achieve more accessible, inclusive, and sustainable healthcare systems.
The volume is divided into five thematic sections: 1) Analytical approaches to health communication, 2) Intercultural and mediated communication, 3) Negotiation and meaning construction, 4) Expertise and common ground, 5) Uncertainty and evasive answers, bringing together a group of top scholars on the much-debated issue of shared understanding both at the micro-level of dialogues between professionals and patients, and the macro-level of institutional communication.
In the variety of its contributions, it represents an ambitious attempt at setting pragmatics at the core of healthcare communication research and practice, by combining conceptual reflections on core topics in the field of pragmatics (among which are speech acts, common ground, ambiguity, implicitness), with discourse and linguistic analysis of real-world examples exploring various problems in health communication.
The volume is divided into five thematic sections: 1) Analytical approaches to health communication, 2) Intercultural and mediated communication, 3) Negotiation and meaning construction, 4) Expertise and common ground, 5) Uncertainty and evasive answers, bringing together a group of top scholars on the much-debated issue of shared understanding both at the micro-level of dialogues between professionals and patients, and the macro-level of institutional communication.
In the variety of its contributions, it represents an ambitious attempt at setting pragmatics at the core of healthcare communication research and practice, by combining conceptual reflections on core topics in the field of pragmatics (among which are speech acts, common ground, ambiguity, implicitness), with discourse and linguistic analysis of real-world examples exploring various problems in health communication.
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 338] 2023. vi, 397 pp.
Publishing status: Available
Published online on 27 October 2023
Published online on 27 October 2023
© John Benjamins
Table of Contents
- Introduction. Fostering interdisciplinary knowledge translation at the interface between healthcare communication and pragmaticsSarah Bigi and Maria Grazia Rossi | pp. 1–14
- Section 1. Analytical approaches to health communication
- Chapter 1. Methodological insights for the study of communication in healthTeresa L. Thompson and Wayne A. Beach | pp. 16–42
- Chapter 2. Microanalysis of Clinical Interaction (MCI)Jennifer Gerwing, Sara Healing and Julia Menichetti | pp. 43–74
- Chapter 3. Public disagreements among health experts and their polarizing effects during a pandemic health crisis: A speech-act theoretical perspectivePaolo Labinaz | pp. 75–103
- Section 2. Intercultural and mediated communication
- Chapter 4. Face-to-face intercultural communication and mediated intercultural communication as related to health communicationIstvan Kecskes | pp. 106–123
- Chapter 5. On managing dyadic sequences in triadic clinician-patient-interpreter interactionLaura Gavioli and Claudio Baraldi | pp. 124–143
- Chapter 6. Pursuing understanding or engaging the patient? “Making the body speak” as a dilemma-overcoming practice in triadic primary care visits with unaccompanied foreign minorsLetizia Caronia, Federica Ranzani and Vittoria Colla | pp. 144–170
- Section 3. Negotiation and meaning construction
- Chapter 7. Negotiation and joint construction of meaning (or why health providers need philosophy of communication)Kasia M. Jaszczolt and Lidia Berthon | pp. 172–199
- Chapter 8. Metapragmatics and reflections in support of knowledge transfer and common ground in doctor-patient interactionÁgnes Kuna and Ágnes Hámori | pp. 200–226
- Chapter 9. The pediatrician’s normalizing practice in well-child visits: Translating statistic measures into lay terms as a means to reassure parentsFederica Ranzani | pp. 227–250
- Section 4. Expertise and common ground
- Chapter 10. Establishing common ground to achieve therapeutic goalsKeith Allan | pp. 252–262
- Chapter 11. Whose common ground? Analyzing communication between physiotherapists and patients in a Hungarian hospitalAnna Udvardi | pp. 263–290
- Chapter 12. Peer experts as actors for shared understanding in Spanish online health foraBarbara De Cock and Carolina Figueras Bates | pp. 291–312
- Section 5. Uncertainty and evasive answers
- Chapter 13. Uncertainty in healthcare: Current challenges and future research directionsPaul K.J. Han | pp. 314–329
- Chapter 14. The pragmatics of diagnostic uncertainty: A closer look at hedges and shared understanding in diagnostic statementsMaria R. Dahm and Carmel Crock | pp. 330–358
- Chapter 15. On indicating and dealing with uncertainty in healthcare dialogues: Questions and findings for medical practice and teachingJulia Gärtner, Kristin Bührig and Sigrid Harendza | pp. 359–372
- Chapter 16. How uncertainty can be turned into shared understanding: Evidence from online medical consultations in TaiwanMing-Yu Tseng and Grace Zhang | pp. 373–394
- Index | pp. 395–397
“The book is an engaging read that serves as a comprehensive handbook for understanding pragmatics through its application to real-life healthcare scenarios. Its holistic approach, combined with its accessible language, makes it an outstanding resource for a wide audience, including researchers, students and professionals in linguistics and medicine. The insights it offers are applicable to both academic discussions and practical settings. Furthermore, the book’s interdisciplinary approach not only advances research, but also underscores the potential of pragmatics to make a significant contribution to society.”
Antoon Cox, KU Leuven & Vrije Universiteit Brussel, in Corpus Pragmatics 9:1 (2025).
Cited by (2)
Cited by two other publications
Rossi, Maria Grazia
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