Author(s)

Minghui Xiao ¹

Affiliation(s)

¹ School of English Studies, Xi'an International Studies University, Xi'an, China

Corresponding Author

Minghui Xiao

ABSTRACT

This article employs the online medical consultation conversations on the website of "Chunyu Yisheng" as data, adopts Gumperz's contextualization cue theory to investigate metonymic schemes of thought employed by doctors in online consultations, explores metonymy as the contextualization cues and explains the evasiveness of doctors' reply by using metonymic schemes of thought as the contextualization cues. This research finds that four metonymic schemes of thought underpin the satisfactory performance of the consultations. The metonymy PART FOR WHOLE provides patients with additional health information related to their health condition. The metonymy POTENTIALITY FOR ACTION/ACTUALITY proposes further medical suggestions for patients. The metonymy CAUSE FOR EFFECT explains why a suggestion is given the way it is. The metonymy CONDITION FOR UNKNOWN speculates on developments of their health conditions. Through exploring metonymic schemes of thought as the contextualization cues in online medical consultation, this study has the following implications. The recognition of contextualization cues can make the doctor-patient communication effective, develop the harmonious doctor-patient relationship and reduce the misunderstandings and conflicts between them.

KEYWORDS

Online medical consultations, contextualization cues, metonymic schemes of thought, doctors' evasive reply

CITE THIS PAPER

Minghui Xiao, Contextualization Cues in Online Medical Consultations: A Cognitive-pragmatic Account of Metonymic Schemes of Thought. Lecture Notes on Language and Literature (2024) Vol. 7: 92-97. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.23977/langl.2024.070216.

REFERENCES

[1] Mao, Y. & Zhao, X. (2019). I am a doctor, and here is my proof: Chinese doctors' identity constructed on the online medical consultation websites. Health Communication, 34(13), 1 645-1652.
[2] Mao, Y. & Zhao, X. (2020). By the mitigation one knows the doctor: Mitigation strategies by Chinese doctors in online medical consultation. Health Communication, 35(6), 667-674.
[3] Zhang, Y. (2021). How doctors do things with empathy in online medical consultations in China: A discourse-analytic approach. Health Communication, 36(7), 816-825. 
[4] Gumperz, J. J. (1982). Discourse Strategies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 131.
[5] Gumperz, J. J. (2003). On the Development of Interactional Sociolinguistics. Language Teaching and Research, (1):1-10.

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