Health Communication: Corpus Linguistics, Data Driven Learning and Education for Health Professionals

Paul Crawford ； Brian Brown

《Taiwan International ESP Journal》 2卷1期 (2010/06) Pp. 1-25

https://doi.org/10.6706/TIESPJ.2010.2.1.1

並列摘要

In this paper we describe how the advances in corpus usage in second language learning have implications for the education of health professionals. The growing understanding that practitioners in the healthcare disciplines must also be effective communicators means that education for these practitioners is ripe for innovation in educational practice. To illustrate what may be learned in this way, we describe some of our own investigations into the idiomatic use of a particular term which occurred frequently in one of our corpora, concerned with health enquiries directed at an online agony aunt. Those inquiring were frequently concerned with whether the issue they described was 'normal' yet idiomatically this was loaded with considerably more meaning than would be disclosed from a mere dictionary definition of the term. Inspection of the contexts in which it occurred suggest that 'normal' is a term drawn upon to mark major life transitions and to aid the identification of aspects of physical or mental health where medical intervention is merited. Normalising practices may be enabling, and part of what has been described as a process of 'civilizing' the body. It is through corpora such as ours that practitioners can understand the concepts employed by actual and potential clients, the vocabularies used and what they likely mean, in a fruitful convergence of data driven learning and education for healthcare practitioners.

並列關鍵字

health communication ； corpus linguistics ； data driven learning ； health professionals

參考文獻

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