Discourse of Oriental medicine

Sociolinguistic studies of medical discourse have focused overwhelmingly on Western medical practice. This study analyzes audio-taped interactions between six Oriental doctors and their patients in Korea, where Western medicine and Oriental medicine enjoy comparable medical authority.; The first half of the study (Chapters 3 through 6) characterizes the Oriental voice per se, which revolves around the term cheycil 'constitution.' Chapter 3 investigates the negotiation of the emergent meanings of this term on or off the continuum of technical vs. non-technical frames. Chapter 4 introduces various biophysical, psychosocial, and reactional elements that emerge as the constitution is negotiated. Chapter 5 investigates the principles which connect the elements and illustrates how the anatomy, physiology, pathology, and curative processes in Oriental medicine are constitutive of and constructed by the negotiation of each element. Chapter 6 scrutinizes the lexical, syntactic, and discursive devices that mark the phase boundaries of Oriental medical discourse and highlights their cyclicality in relation to the constitutional elements. It also challenges the phase models when the patients' voices are highlighted.; The second half of the study (Chapters 7 through 10) examines interactions where both Oriental and Western medical voices converge. Chapter 7 examines references to Western medicine within Oriental medical discourse and demonstrates that the unmarked references are reserved for Western medicine, which is medically and linguistically dominant. However, Chapter 8 illustrates that Oriental medical discourse itself forms a linguistic enclave where the unmarked references point to Oriental medical entities unless a Western frame opens up. Chapter 9 considers the intertextuality and intersubjectivity in Oriental medicine. It demonstrates that Oriental doctors incorporate Western medicine to construct their zone of expertise; patients incorporate Western medicine to construct their zone of comfort in Oriental medicine. In so doing, it argues that the monolingual phase models outlined in Chapter 6 fail to capture the multiple voices within Oriental medicine. The study concludes that Oriental medicine both competes and cooperates with Western medicine and that such parallel medical and discursive communities allow the interactants in Oriental medical discourse to raise multi-layered voices and exercise multiple levels of power claims.