Description
Manipulating threat in medical discourse (Daphne Charalampopoulou)
Medical discourse has attracted the attention of scholars internationally, both in monolingual research and in translation. As in any social situation, a topic which has attracted particular attention is the relational dynamics between interlocutors, in this case expert/doctor and patient. When medical discourse is to be transferred cross-culturally, do the interpersonal dynamics between expert and patient shift or are they invariable? The aim of the study is to research variation in the relationship between expert-patient through Greek-English translated medical discourse. The study examined twenty medical leaflets of the “HYGEIA” private hospital, Athens, advertising services the hospital offers, with reference to various medical conditions. The analysis utilizes pragmatics, namely, im/politeness theory to examine threat awareness in the communicative situation and power distance between expert and patient. Findings show that the Greek version of the data heightens power distance and assumes higher threat awareness, which seems to be confirmed by a questionnaire addressing 15 bilingual respondents. The significance of the research lies in that it draws attention to intercultural variation in medical communication through translation, suggesting that translation data is another platform where medical communication may fruitfully be researched.
