General practitioners' narrative discourse on domestic violence : a sociolinguistic study
This doctoral thesis is founded on the sociolinguistic tradition of applying linguistic knowledge to social issues on the one hand, and the study of narrative on the other. The problem under investigation is general practitioners' narrative discourse on domestic violence. More precisely, this thesis: 1. analyses the discursive strategies GPs apply in interviews when they talk about their experiences with victims; 2. states what these strategies reveal about GPs' perceptions of and attitudes towards domestic violence; 3. demonstrates what this indicates with regard to the construction of medical knowledge about the issue; 4. identifies the problems the GPs' discursive practices might reveal and also engender for their daily work; 5. offers solutions from within the narrative framework as part of a larger endeavour to encourage cross-disciplinary collaboration. The data for this study were generated in twenty in-depth interviews with GPs in the City of Aberdeen in 2000. The linguistic features analysed include: evaluative devices, modalities, metaphors, thematic roles, passive constructions and spatio-temporal language. The analyses show that GPs often blur notions of agency and thus contribute to an indirect
Mildorf, Jarmila
General practitioners' narrative discourse on domestic violence : a sociolinguistic study. This doctoral thesis is founded on the sociolinguistic tradition of applying linguistic knowledge to social issues on the one hand, and the study of narrative on the other. The problem under investigation is general practitioners' narrative discourse on domestic violence. More precisely, this thesis: 1. analyses the discursive strategies GPs apply in interviews when they talk about their experiences with victims; 2. states what these strategies reveal about GPs' perceptions of and attitudes towards domestic violence; 3. demonstrates what this indicates with regard to the construction of medical knowledge about the issue; 4. identifies the problems the GPs' discursive practices might reveal and also engender for their daily work; 5. offers solutions from within the narrative framework as part of a larger endeavour to encourage cross-disciplinary collaboration. The data for this study were generated in twenty in-depth interviews with GPs in the City of Aberdeen in 2000. The linguistic features analysed include: evaluative devices, modalities, metaphors, thematic roles, passive constructions and spatio-temporal language. The analyses show that GPs often blur notions of agency and thus contribute to an indirect
general practitioner narrative_discourse domestic violence sociolinguistic_study doctoral found sociolinguistic tradition apply_linguistic knowledge social issue one_hand study narrative other problem investigation general practitioner narrative_discourse domestic violence precisely analysis discursive strategy apply interview talk experience victim state strategy reveal perception attitude_towards domestic violence demonstrates indicate regard construction medical_knowledge issue identifies problem discursive_practice might reveal also engender daily work offer_solution within narrative framework part large endeavour encourage cross_disciplinary collaboration data study generate twenty depth_interview city linguistic_feature analyse include evaluative device modality metaphor thematic_role passive construction spatio_temporal language analysis_show often blur notion agency thus_contribute indirect