An Investigation On Verbal Communication Failure In Doctor-patient Discourses

Recently, the relationship between doctors and patients is becoming increasingly tense, which has even become a serious social problem. While civilians complain about the unsatisfactory medical care service, medical workers complain about patients’failing to understand and trust them. Hence medical disputes increase. The doctor-patient discourse is a special institutional discourse. Except for instrumental examinations, the diagnostic process is mainly achieved through language communication, which to some extent, determines the results of the diagnosis. Among the various factors affecting the on-goings of doctor-patient dialogues and their relationship, verbal communication failure is singled out to be investigated in this study.This thesis focuses on the investigation of verbal communication failure in doctor-patient discourses by employing the theory of interactive sociolinguistics. The research is carried out through descriptive as well as empirical approaches. The data utilized in the present thesis are collected from more than10key departments of Xinqiao Hospital, an excellent hospital in Chongqing, ranging from Cardio-vascular Medicine, Renal Medicine to Gastrointestinal Medicine. After thoroughly examining the data that are available for this research, the author makes an in-depth analysis of communication failures in doctor-patient discourses and a detailed account of the causes that lead to the occurrence of such failures. This study reveals that communication failures in doctor-patient discourses can be manifested as linguistic failure, pragmalinguistic failure and sociopragmatic failure, which result from different value systems, differences in know-how, differences in communication styles and differences in the use of face systems. Moreover, the thesis attempts to seek some possible and feasible strategies for doctors and patients to take so as to avoid verbal communication failure as possible as they can and lessen the negative effects it brings to doctor-patient communication, in the hope that successful and efficient communication can be achieved. It is found in the study that:First, most patients tend to describe their symptoms in a prolix way and sometimes even mention something that is irrelevant to the conversation. As for doctors, they often say less than patients expect and avoid telling the truth to patients when they believe it is unnecessary to do so. Second, due to the asymmetry of medical knowledge and experience between doctors and patients, doctors tend to take the independent face strategy while patients usually choose to use involvement face strategy as they need to ask for help from doctors. Finally, it also finds that the tense doctor-patient relation resulted from verbal communication failure can be alleviated or changed by some communicative strategies.This thesis also brings some enlightenment. First, investigating verbal communication failures in doctor-patient discourses can further supplement and enrich the discourse system theories and applications related. Second, the authentic data analyzed in this thesis will enlarge the corpus of the study on doctor-patient conversations, which will shed light on how to improve the relationship between doctors and patients.