Third ISA Forum of Sociology (July 10-14, 2016)

JS-33

Language on Health and Disease

RC25 Language and Society (host committee)
RC15 Sociology of Health

Language: English

Generally speaking, the diagnosis of diseases depends on the accuracy of the patient’s medical history and the physician’s ability to evaluate this information. This process may seem very common to most people in the modern medical system. However, a single diagnosis could have the potential to change your entire life. 
You may, in a certain case, first realize the nature of your condition through a doctor’s diagnosis. There you recognize your body (including the brain) as an object that requires proper care and treatment. 
On the other hand, you yourself may notice certain symptoms of a disease before getting a proper medical diagnosis. You may have the ability to feel the changes occurring in your body to explain the causes of the deterioration of your health, without any hard-based data such as level of blood pressure. There you recognize your body subjectively, rather than objectively. In this sense, we usually become aware of our health conditions through either of the two ways raised above. These two methods of determining the state of our health are known as Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM) and Narrative-Based Medicine (NBM). 
This session aims to shed light on how we manage ourselves in our choice of words according to circumstances, in everyday life, at the clinic or in a hospital room. Language is an essential tool for communicating the state of our health to medical experts. Any paper addressing the relationships between language and health are welcome. Posters: