Conventionalized constructions in clinical case reports

Abstract

The clinical case report (CCR) is a genre specific of healthcare professionals. It is characterized by the usage of specialized terminology and abbreviations that match the communicative purposes of the genre and the community of practice. Along with these resources, we find certain constructions that not necessarily contain specialized words, but that also characterize this genre. These structures are repeated with identical or similar forms in many CCR and with the same goals. We identify these conventionalized constructions applying a corpus browser to 115 CCR in Catalan, Spanish and English on mental disorders, from the fields of neurology, psychiatry and psychology. We present the most prominent ones and relate them to four of the rhetorical moves analysed by Helán: justification of the case; case presentation; presentation of the patient regarding the reason of admission; investigation of the problem.

Keywords

• cas clínic
• llenguatge especialitzat
• construccions convencionalitzades
• discurs sanitari
• salut mental