Medical writing : modality in focus / Minna Vihla.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Vihla, Minna.

Series:

Language and computers ; no. 28.

Language and computers ; no. 28

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Modality (Linguistics).

Medical writing.

Physical Description:

vii, 170 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Amsterdam ; Atlanta, GA : Rodopi, 1999.

Contents:

2. Professional languages and genres 6

2.1 Why study professional languages? 6

2.2 Texts in context: background 9

2.3 Medical discourse in social and institutional contexts 12

2.4 Genres 14

3. Modality 17

3.1 Approaches to modality: past to present 17

3.2 Epistemic modality 20

3.3 Deontic modality 23

3.4 Other modalities 24

3.5 Epistemic vs. dynamic 27

3.6 Appear and seem 30

3.7 Deontic vs. dynamic 31

3.8 Modals with speech-act verbs 32

3.9 Negation 33

4. Material and methods 36

4.1 Corpus linguistic setting 36

4.2 Medicor: a corpus of medical texts 37

4.3 Methods 41

4.3.1 Generic and intratextual variation 41

4.3.2 Selection and classification of the items 41

4.3.3 Statistical tools 44

4.3.4 Concordance and other programs used, reference corpora 45

5. Modals 46

5.1 Generic variation: overview 46

5.2 Semantic analysis: overview 47

5.3 Collocations 48

6. Expressions of possibility 51

6.1 Non-semantic analysis 51

6.2 Identification of epistemic occurrences 52

6.3 Epistemic possibility 54

7. Indicating a higher degree of commitment 56

7.1 Non-semantic analysis 56

7.2 Identification of epistemic occurrences 57

7.3 Epistemic certainty and likelihood 59

7.4 'Experimental' expressions 60

8. Obligations and recommendations 62

8.1 Non-semantic analysis 62

8.2 Identifying deontic occurrences 63

8.3 Deontic modals 65

9. Intratextual variation 67

9.1 Previous analyses 67

9.2 Medical research articles 68

9.3 Medical editorials and popular articles 71

10. Comparing corpora 73

10.1 Comparison with non-semantic analyses 73

10.2 Comparison with semantic analyses of modals 78

11. Textual dimensions of medical genres 84

11.1 Distribution of modal expressions in the genres 84

11.2 Pronouns and conjuncts 84

12. Pragmatic aspects of modality 89

12.1 Non-commitment and reliability 89

12.2 Politeness 91

12.3 Hedging 95

13. Argumentation in medical texts 102

13.1 On argumentation 102

13.2 Modality in argumentation 104

13.3 Interpretative, quotative and experimental justification 107

13.4 Genre-dependent argumentation 111

13.5 Generic differences: qualitative analysis 113

14. Modality and the disciplinary context of medicine 119

14.1 Deontic modals as indicators of professional norms 119

14.2 Scientific and clinical contexts 121

14.3 Socialization into the profession 124

15. Medical genres 126

15.1 Functional hierarchy of medical genres 126

15.2 New genres 129

15.3 Commentaries: quantitative analysis 130

15.4 Medicalization 132

Appendix 1 Textual dimensions according to Biber (1988) and Biber et al. (1998) 152

Appendix 2 Corpus of medical texts 153

Appendix 3 Selections of BNC texts 165.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 139-151) and indexes.

ISBN:

9042007087

OCLC:

42770294