Genre Characteristics of a Medical Poster about Diabetes

Abstract

The study is devoted to a polycode genre of medical discourse - medical poster. The relevance of the work is explained by the established interest of linguists in medical discourse and the need to study it in a variety of polycode genres and in various linguistic cultures. The purpose of the work is to establish universal and culturally specific features of verbal and visual components of a medical poster as a genre of medical discourse. The research material is polycode texts of a medical poster about diabetes in Russian, Arabic and Chinese languages, obtained by continuous sampling from open sources on the Internet. The study allowed us to conclude that diabetes, as a disease that has a high rate of spread and a stable correlation with lifestyle, is perceived as a social problem, the tool for informing about it is a medical poster, that has the following genre characteristics: a certain form of presenting information, thematic division (symptoms description, complications, prevention, life with diabetes, nutrition, physical activity, etc.), inclusion of medical terminology; the use of drawings and diagrams, primarily showing possible complications; orientation to semiotic characteristics of colour according to national culture; duplication of text component information with use of visual tools. The main linguistic and cultural features of a medical poster are their dominant functions (Russian medical poster - organizing; Arabic - informational and educational; Chinese - attractive), modality (Russian medical poster - working; Arabic - alarming; Chinese - neutral) and emphasis on various aspects of the disease (Russian medical poster - deepening background knowledge about the disease; Arabic - changing food stereotypes and the possibility of including medicinal plants and dietary supplements in treatment; Chinese - no requirement for a radical change in eating behaviour out of respect for gastronomic traditions, physical activity as disease prevention). The study contributes to describing features of the implementation of medical discourse in various linguistic cultures. The prospect of the study is seen in the inclusion of medical posters devoted to a wide range of medical problems in various languages in the research material.

Keywords

• medical discourse
• medical poster
• polycode text
• verbal component
• visual component
• semiotics of colour