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Article published In:
Pragmatics and Society
Vol. 15:5 (2024) ► pp.732–754

A politeness-theoretic approach to mitigated disagreements in online radio medical consultations

ORCID logo | Nanjing University
In medical settings, disagreement between doctors and patients frequently occurs, and it is considered a potential trigger to elicit conflicts. Hence, the point of departure for this study is the widely accepted view that these kinds of “face-threatening” and “dispreferred” acts need to be modified. Thus, this study sheds light on analyzing doctor-patient’s discourse in 25 episodes of online radio medical consultation, reporting on Chinese doctors’ mitigated disagreement forms and offering a novel perspective on how Chinese doctors use these mitigated disagreements to turn divergent ideas into alignment with patients in online radio medical consultation. The findings in this study provide preliminary empirical support for the idea that mitigated disagreements can be seen as a sign of relational work and may not destroy but rather strengthen doctor-patient’s relations.
Keywords: mitigation, disagreement, mitigated disagreement, working alliance, Chinese medical consultation
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Mitigated disagreements: Politeness and relational issues
  • 3.Research method
    • 3.1Research questions
    • 3.2Data collection
    • 3.3Data analysis
  • 4.Types of mitigated disagreements
    • 4.1Prosodic strategies
      • 4.1.1Hesitation pauses
      • 4.1.2Responsive laughs
    • 4.2Syntactic strategies
      • 4.2.1Requests for clarification
      • 4.2.2Contradictory assertions
    • 4.3Discourse strategies
      • 4.3.1Drawing analogies
      • 4.3.2Previous mutual memory
  • 5.Underlying motivations behind doctors’ mitigated disagreements
    • 5.1Cognitive motivations
    • 5.2Emotional motivations
  • 6.Conclusion
  • References
Published online: 10 October 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.20069.zha
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