Nigerian hospital setting discourse
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Medical discourse, pragmatics and doctor-patient interactions in Nigerian hospital settings
- 3.Themes in Nigerian hospital setting discourse
- 3.1Alignment with institutional prescriptions
- 3.1.1Hierarchical communication
- 3.1.2Structured communication
- 3.1.3De-routinisation of everyday experiences
- 3.1.4Communicative and strategic language use
- 3.2Co-existence of conventional and local linguistic choices
- 3.2.1The use of medical terminologies
- 3.2.2Grammatical choices
- 3.3Socio-cultural, ideological and practice-setting impingements on clinical encounters
- 3.4Differential orientation to medical and social voices
- 4.Conclusion
-
Notes
-
References
References (92)
References
Abiola, T., O. Udofia and A. Abdullahi. 2014. “Patient-doctor relationship: The practice orientation of doctors in Kano.” Nigerian Journal of Clinical Practice 17 (2): 241–247. [URL]
Abioye-Kuteyi, E. A., I. S. Bello, T. M. Olaleye, I. O. Ayeni and M. I. Amedi. 2010. “Determinants of patient satisfaction with physician interaction: A Cross-section Survey at the Obafemi Awolowo University Health Centre, Ile-Ife.“ South African Family Practice 52 (6): 557–562.
Adam, Quasim. 2014. “A Study of Power Relations in Doctor–Patient Interactions in Selected Hospitals in Lagos State, Nigeria.” Advances in Language and Literary Studies 5 (2): 177–184.
Adebayo, Comfort T. 2021. “Physician-Patient Interactions in Nigeria: A Critical-Cultural Perspective on the Role of Power.” Journal of Intercultural Communication Research 50(1): 21–40.
Ainsworth-Vaughn, Nancy. 1992. “Topic transitions in physician-patient interviews: Power, gender and discourse change.” Language in Society 21: 409–426.
Ainsworth-Vaughn, Nancy. 1995. “Claiming power in the medical encounter: The whirlpool discourse.” Qual. Health Res 5 (3): 270–291.
Ainsworth-Vaugh, Nancy. 2005. “The Discourse of Medical Encounters.” In The Handbook of Discourse Analysis, ed. by Deborah Schiffrin, Deborah Tannen and Heidi E. Hamilton, 453–469. Malden: Blackwell.
Ajayi, I. 2003. “The consultation style of doctors at an outpatient clinic in Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria: Are patients participating?” Nigerian Journal of Clinical Practices 6 (1): 10–16.
Archer, Dawn and Peter, Grundy (eds). 2011. The Pragmatics Reader. London and New York: Routledge.
Ayeloja Adewale, Kazeem. 2019. “Discourse devices and pragmatic functions in doctor-patient verbal interactions at University of Ilorin, Nigeria.” International Journal on Studies in English Language and Literature 7 (2): 23–36.
Belanger, Emmanuelle, Charo Rodriguez, Danielle Groleau, France Legare, Mary Ellen Macdonald and Robert Marchand. 2016. “Patient participation in palliative care decisions: an ethnographic discourse analysis.” International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Health and Well-being 11 (10): 1–14.
Bianchi, Claudia. 2010. ‘‘Contextualism’’. In Handbook of Pragmatics, 2010 Installment, ed. by Jan-Ola Östman and Jef Verschueren, Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1–19.
Bishop, Felicity, Yardley, Lucy. 2004. “Constructing Responsibility in Treatment Decisions: Negotiating Responsibility in Cancer.” Health Int. J. Soc. Study Health Illn. Med 8 (4), 465–482.
Byrne, Patrick S., and Barrie, E. Long. 1976. Doctors Talking to Patients. London: HMSO.
Caffi, Claudia. 2002. Sei lezioni di pragmatica linguistica. Genova: Name.
Caffi, Claudia. 2007. Mitigation. Oxford: Elsevier. (Studies in Pragmatics, Vol. 4).
Cassell, Eric. 1985. Talking with Patients, Volume 2: Clinical Technique. Cambridge MA: MIT
Chimombo, Moira, and Robert L. Roseberry. 1998. The Power of Discourse: An Introduction to Discourse Analysis. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Chukwu, Uche K. and Chioma Chinedu-Oko. 2021. “Ambivalent Discourse and the Language of Medical Practice: Examining the Nigerian Context”. Transatlantic Journal of Multidisciplinary Research 3 (i): 67–83.
Clark, Herbert. 1996. Using Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cook, Guy. 1989. Discourse. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Costello, Brian and Roberts, Felicia. 2001. “Medical Recommendations as Joint Social Practice.” Health and Communication 13 (3): 241–260.
D’hondt, Sigurd and Odebunmi, Akin. forthc. “Knowledge Distribution in Provenance Inquiries: a Study of Small Talk in Nigerian Clinical Meetings”. In Identity Perspectives from Peripheries, ed. by Yoshiko Matsumoto and Jan- Ola Östman.
Ferrara, Kathleen Warden. 1994. Therapeutic ways with words. New York: Oxford University Press.
Frankel, Richard. 1979. “Talking in interviews: A dispreference for patient-initiated encounters”. In Everyday Language: Studies in Ethnomethodology, ed. by George Psathas, 231–262. New York: Irvington.
Goffman, Ervin. 1983. “The Interaction Order.” American Sociological Review 48: 1–17.
Good, Mary-Jo, Byron Good, Cynthia Schaffer and Stuart Lind. 1990. “American Oncology and the Discourse on Hope.” Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry 14: 59–79.
Goodwin, Marjorie Harness. 1990. He-said-she-said: Talk as Social Organization among Black Children. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Google Arts and Culture. “Esophageal Achlasia”. [URL]. Accessed 2 May, 2021.
Heritage, John. 2012. “Epistemics in Action: Action Formation and Territories of Knowledge”. Research on Language & Social Interaction, 45:1, 1–29.
Haberland, Helmut and Jacob L. Mey. 1981. “Wording and Warding: The Pragmatics of Therapeutic Conversation.” Journal of Pragmatics 5: 103–111.
Habermas, Jürgen. 1984. The Theory of Communicative Action.: Reason and the Rationalization of Society (Vol. 1). Boston: Beacon Press.
Habermas, Jurgen. 1987. The Theory of Communicative Action. Vol. II: Lifeworld and System, T. McCarthy (trans.). Boston: Beacon.
Haugh, Michael. 2008. “Intention in Pragmatics.” Intercultural Pragmatics 5 (2): 1–8.
Heath, Christian. 1992. “Diagnosis in the General-Practice Consultation.” In Talk at Work, ed. by Paul Drew and John Heritage, 235–67. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hein, Robert and Ruth Wodak. 1987. “Medical interviews in internal medicine. Some results of an empirical investigation.” Text 7 (1): 37–66.
Heritage, John and Douglas Maynard. 2006. Communication in medical care: Interaction between primary care physicians and patients. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Iloh, Gabriel Uche Pascal, Obianma Nneka Onya, Uche Ngozi Nwamoh, Prince Ezenwa Ndubueze Onyemachi, Miracle Erinma Chukwuonye and Ezinne Uchamma Godswill-Uko. 2019. “Patient-Doctor relationship in undeserved environment: A cross-sectional study of attitudinal orientation, practice inclination, barriers and benefits among medical practitioners in Abia State, Nigeria.” Niger Postgrad Med Journal 26 (2): 87–93.
Kettunen, Tarja and Marita Poskita. 2001. “Taciturn patients in health counseling: Passive recipients or active participators?” Qualitative Health Research 11:399–422.
Lakoff, Robin. 2007. “The triangle of linguistic structure.” In A Cultural Communication: Essential Readings, ed. by Leila Monaghan and Jane E. Goodman, 128–133. Malden/Oxford/Victoria: Blackwell.
Landmark, Anne Marie D., Pål Gulbrandsen and Jan Svennevig. 2015. “Whose decision? Negotiating epistemis and deontic rights in medical treatment decisions.” Journal of Pragmatics 78: 54–69.
Lawal, Bolarinde Joseph, Schadrac Agbla, Bola Lawal Queen Nkeiruka, Muhammed Afolabi and Elvis Ihaji. 2018. “Patients’ satisfaction with care from Nigerian Federal Capital Territory’s Public Secondary Hospitals: A cross-sectional study.” Journal of Patient Experience 5 (4): 250–257.
Lindström, Berbyuk Nataliya. 2008. Intercultural Communication in Health Care: Non-Swedish Physicians in Sweden. Gothenburg: University of Gothenburg.
Lindström, Anna and Ann Weatherall. 2015. “Orientations to epistemics and deontics in treatment discussions.” Journal of Pragmatics 78: 39–53.
Martin, Gillian. 2014. “Pragmatics and Medical Discourse.” In Pragmatics of Discourse ed. by Klaus Schneider and Anne Barron, 491–524. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Maynard, Douglas. 1989. “Notes on the delivery and reception of diagnostic news regarding mental disabilities.” In The Interactional Order: New Directions in the Study of Social Order, ed. by D. T. Helm, W. T. Anderson, A. J. Meehan and A. W. Rawls, 54–67. New York: Irvington.
Maynard, Douglas. 1996. “On ‘realisation’ in everyday life: The forecasting of bad news as a social relation.” American Sociological Review 16 (1): 109–131.
Maynard, Douglas. 2005. “‘Does it mean I’m gonna die?’: On meaning assessment in the delivery of diagnostic news.” Social Science and Medicine 62 (8): 1902–1916.
Maynard, Douglas. 1996. “On ‘realisation’ in everyday life: The forecasting of bad news as a social relation.” American Sociological Review 16 (1): 109–131.
Maynard, Douglas. 2010. “The News Delivery Sequence: Bad News and Good News in Conversational Interaction.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 30 (2): 93–130.
Mayr, Andrea. 2008. “Introduction: Power, Discourse and Institutions.” In Language and power: An introduction to institutional discourse, ed. by Andrea Mayr, 1–16. London: Continuum.
Mey, Jacob. 2017. “In Tempore Opportuno: Of Certainty and Uncertainty in (Non)Time”. In Pragmatics, Discourse and Society: A Festschrift for Akin Odebunmi ed. by Osunbade, Niyi, Unuabonah Foluke, Ayo Osisanwo, Akin Adetunji and Funke Oni, 1–17. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Mishler, Eliot. 1984. The Discourse of Medicine. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Nwodoh, Chijioke Oliver, Ijeoma Lewechi Okoronkwo, Ada Carol Nwaneri, Ifeoma Ndubuisi, Goodman John Ani and Ephraim Obadiah Dyages. 2018. “Terminally ill patients’ perception on healthcare providers’ communication of prognostic information: A qualitative study from Nigeria, West Africa.” Cogent Medicine 5: 1–10.
Odebunmi, Akin. 2003. Pragmatic Features of English Usage in Hospital Interactions amongst Medical Practitioners and Patients in Southwestern Nigeria. Unpublished PhD thesis. Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife.
Odebunmi, Akin. 2005. “The context of hospital conversational interactions in Southwestern Nigeria”. Journal of the Nigeria English Studies Association 11 (1): 38–53.
Odebunmi, Akin. 2006a. Meaning in English: An Introduction. Ogbomoso: Critical Sphere.
Odebunmi, Akin. 2008. “Pragmatic Strategies of Diagnostic News Delivery in Nigerian Hospitals.” Linguistik Online, 36 (4): 21–37.
Odebunmi, Akin. 2013. “Greetings and Politeness in Doctor--Client Encounters in Southwestern Nigeria.” Iranian Journal of Society, Culture and Language 1(1): 101–117.
Odebunmi, A. 2016. “Language, Context and Society: a Theoretical Anchorage.” In Language, Context and Society: a Festschrift for Wale Adegbite, ed. by A. Odebunmi and K. Ayoola, 3–33. Ile-Ife: Obafemi Awolowo University Press.
Odebunmi, Akin. 2021b. “Discursive Repetitions and Voices in Nigerian Clinical Meetings.” Ghana Journal of Linguistics 10 (1): 27–72.
Odebunmi, Akin. 2021c. “Okay, let’s come a level ground’: Negotiating Patient non-compliance with Therapy Plans in Nigerian Clinical Encounters”. In Language and literary studies in society: A festschrift for professor Eno Grace Nta @ 65 ed by G. O. Ushie, I. T. and A. M. Ebim, 19–44. Lagos: University of Lagos Press.
Odebunmi, Akin. 2021d. “Discursive Phatic Inclusion in Asymmetrical Consultative Meetings.” Paper presented at the 17th International Pragmatics Association in Winterthur, Switzerland.
Ogundiran, T. O. and C. A. Adebamowo. 2012. “Surgeon-Patient Information Disclosure Practices in Southwestern Nigeria.” Medical Principles and Practice 21: 238–243.
Olorunsogo, David. 2020. “Pilot study: Politeness in selected doctor-patient interactions in Ibadan private hospitals.” International Journal of Research and Innovation 4 (8): 489–495.
Ong, L. M., J. C. de Haes, A. M. Hoos and F. B. Lammes. 1995. “Doctor-Patient communication: A review of the literature.” Public Medicine 40: 903–918.
Peräkylä, Anssi. 1995. AIDS Counselling. Instituional Interaction and Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Riedel, Sabine. 2002. “Auch fur muss alles verstanden sein”. Grenz(en)uberschreitende Artz-Patient Kommunikation: Fallsstudien zur interkulturellen kommunikation: Deutschland-Danemark. In Interkulturelle kommunikation, Deutschland-Skadinavien-Grossbritannien ed. by Ernst Apeltauer, 67–90. Tubengen: Narr.
Robert, Celia, Becky Moss, Val Wass, Srikant Sarangi and Roger Jones. 2005. “Misundersandings: A Qualitative Study of Primary Care Consultations in Multilingual Settings, and Educational Implications.” Medical Education 29: 465–472.
Robert di Sarsina, Paolo and Iseppato, Ilaria. 2010. “Person-Centred Medicine: Towards a Definition.” Forchende Komplementarmedizin 17: 277–278.
Roter, D. L. and J. A. Hall. 1992. Doctors Talking with Patients/patients Talking with Doctors: Improving Communication in Medical Visits. Westport, CT: Auburn House.
Shika, Murjanatu S. 2015. A Sociolinguistic Study of Doctor-Patient Interaction: A Case Study of ABUTH. Unpublished Master Degree Thesis: Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria.
Shuy, Roger W. 1983. “Three Types of Interference to an Effective Exchange of Information in the Medical Interview.” In Social Organization of Doctor–Patient Communication, ed. by Sue Fisher and Alexandra D. Todd, 189–202. Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics.
Sinding, C., P. Hudak, J. Wiernikowski, P. Miller, J. Gould and D. Fitzpatrick-Lewis. 2010. “I like to be an informed patient but… ‘Negotiating responsibility for treatment decisions in cancer care’”. Social Science and Medicine. 71: 1094–1101.
Smith, R. C., and R. Hoppe. 1991. “The Patient’s Story: Integrating a Patient–Centered Approach to Interviewing.” Annals of Internal Medicine 115: 470–7.
Stivers, Tanya. 2001. “Negotiating Who Presents the Problem: Next Speaker Selection in Pediatric Encounters”. Journal of Communication 51 (2): 231–449.
Stivers, Tanya. 2002. “Participating in Decision about Treatment: Overt Parent Pressure for Antibiotic Medication in Pediatric Encounters.” Social Science and Medicine 54, 1111–1130.
Stivers, Tanya. 2005. “Parent Resistance to Physicians’ Treatment Recommendations: One Resource for Initiating Negotiation of the Treatment Decision. Health Communication. 18 (1), 41–74.
Talbot, Mary. 2007. Media Discourse: Representation and interaction. Edinburg: Edinburg University Press.
ten Have, Paul. 1989. “The Consultation as Genre.” In Text and Talk as Social Practice, ed. by Brian Torode, 115–35. Dordrecht: Foris.
Thomas, Jenny. 1995. Meaning in Interaction: An Introduction to Pragmatics. London and New York: Routledge.
Todd, Alexandra D. 1984. “The Prescription of Contraception.” Discourse Processes 7: 171–200.
Watermeyer, Jennifer and Claire Penn. 2009. “The Organisation of Pharmacist-Patient Interactions in an HIV/AIDS Clinic.” Journal of Pragmatics 41: 2053–2071.
Weijts, W. 1993. “Seeking information.” In Patient participation in gynecological encounters: Studying interactional patterns, 39–64. Maastricht. [Thesis].
Weijts, W., G. Widdershoven, G. Kok and P. Tomlow. 1993. “Patients’ information-seeking actions and physicians responses in gynecological consultations.” Qualitative Health Research 3 (4): 398–429.
West, Candace. 1984. Routine complications: Troubles with talk between doctors and patients. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Wilce, James. 2009. “Medical Discourse.” Annual Review of Anthropology 38: 199–215.