Dialogic Discourse in Medical Practice: Cognitive, Verbal, and Structural Features

Abstract

The article describes the cognitive and verbal features of dialogic speech produced by teenage patients operated for congenital heart defect. Doctor-patient dialogues remain linguistically understudied when it comes to pediatric patients with a history of septal congenital heart defect that required cardiopulmonary bypass surgery. The research featured 27 depersonalized dialogues between a cardiologist and a teenage patient (13–15 y.o.) 6 or 7 days after heart surgery. The objective was to describe how questions and answers structured the dialogue between the patient and the cardiologist as the latter collected direct post-surgery anamnesis. The analysis relied on the methods of discourse, structural, and syntactic analyses, which made it possible to typologize the questions and responses. The question-answer interaction proved rapid, brief, and syntactically dependent. The cardiologist directed their patient’s speech activity by employing effective questioning and guiding tactics. Practically all lines were semantically, structurally, and communicatively interrelated. One-word responses and communication failures were probably associated with the teenage psychology and/or recovery status.

Keywords

• medical discourse
• dialogic speech
• question
• response
• patients with chd
• congenital heart disorder
• cognitive and verbal features