Transition Of The Language And Thought Of Doctors Who Become Patients From The Perspective Of Discourse Analysis

As to the long-lasting question of the interaction between language and thought, many classic hypotheses have been put forward, including Sapir (1949) and Whorf (1956)'s linguistic relativity, cognitive hypothesis held by Vygotsky (1962), Chomsky's (1963) nativism, "language of thought" hypothesis put forward by Jerry Fodor (1975), and Pinker's (1994) mentalese theory. Though having been meticulously examined, relevant studies are limited to linguistic level. Even when concerned with reality, they are confined to language differences. Very few has been done to put the study of language and thought in a broader social context. The doctor-patient conversation provides scholars with such a corpus.Doctor-patient conversation is one in which the confrontation between the language of science and everyday language is very evident. Both carrying with their own experience of language and cognition, doctors and patients differ in perceptions of communication and may view the diagnose in contrasting ways as well. Within the previous studies on therapist-client conversation, it has been underexplored in the role transition of the doctors who become patients, which may generate their thought and discourse structures' alteration. Thus this paper is intended to explore this phenomenon. When becoming a patient, a doctor's role transition is supposed to cause his change of speech and thought pattern. There will be some implications for both linguistics and medical science.In this thesis, three medical workers, including a doctor, a pharmacist and a nurse, were interviewed. Interviews were carried out in natural circumstances and interviewees were required to describe the impressions and feelings about their doctor-patient conversations. Interviews were natural and informal. We audiotaped the conversations. Secondly, five condensed questionnaires will provide with answers from five doctors working in the military hospital of Taiyuan, Shanxi Province.It is found that doctors have a professional intervention to their seeing a doctor, and after their experience of treatment, their communication with their patients will be improved. Furthermore, their communication about drugs, with regard to decision making, also helps to draw a conclusion on the inseparable association between language and thought.The present thesis proceeds with five parts:an overall introduction to the whole research, literature review of the previous studies, methodology, discussions of the results, and implications of the study for both psycholinguistics and medical personnel.