A Study On Pragmatic Functions Of Mitigation In Doctor-patient Dialogues During COVID-19 In China From The Rapport Management Theory Perspective

Since the end of 2019,the COVID-19 pandemic has raged.This public health emergency has brought new challenges to the originally tense doctor-patient relationship.Corresponding laws and regulations need improving,and building harmonious doctor-patient relationship is also imminent.Doctor-patient dialogue runs through health services,playing an important role in creating a harmonious doctor-patient relationship.As a language method,mitigation helps to weaken the illocutionary force,reduce negative effects,and maintain harmonious interpersonal interaction.Based on the doctor-patient dialogues in anti-epidemic documentaries which have been broadcast during the COVID-19 pandemic,from the perspective of the Rapport Management Theory of Spencer-Oatey centered on face management,social rights and obligations management and interactional goals management,combined with the research methods of qualitative and quantitative,this research tries to answer two questions:(1)What kinds of mitigations exist in doctor-patient dialogues?(2)How does mitigation realize pragmatic functions under the guidance of the Rapport Management Theory?First of all,after identifying different types of mitigations and their distribution,it is found that propositional mitigation has the highest frequency,and then is illocutionary mitigation.Perlocutionary mitigation accounts for the least proposition.Confronting with the epidemic,both doctors and patients tend to employ appropriate utterance to ensure the smoothness and efficiency of current communication rather than avoid the negative impact caused by incorrect speech act.Secondly,there are obvious distribution characteristics around different topics.In the topic of engagement and care or sympathy expression,the most appeared are terms of address and politeness markers.As to diagnosis and treatment topic and education and suggestion topic,tag questions are the most widely distributed.Finally,both doctors and patients tend to use different types of mitigation under the guidance of Rapport Management Theory,which realizes pragmatic functions: positive face management,social rights and obligations management,and interactional goals management.By investigating medical process with interpersonal pragmatics and analyzing mitigations and their pragmatic functions in doctor-patient dialogues,this study is hoped to provide a reference for doctors to achieve effective communication via using mitigations and promote harmonious relationship between doctors and patients.