A Contrastive Study of Interpersonal Meaning in Chinese and Western Outpatient Clinic Interaction

Abstract

Outpatient clinic interactions have direct impacts on the medical consultation of doctors, the health of patients and the doctor-patient relationship. In an outpatient clinic interaction, the doctor constructs and the patient reconstructs the meaning. Based on the interpersonal metafuncion of systemic functional linguistics, this research investigated the characteristics of mood and modality in Chinese and western outpatient clinic interactions and identified the interpersonal functions of these interactions. It is found that the Chinese outpatient clinic interactions have positive semantic meanings and construe a harmonious interaction, while the western outpatient clinic interactions have negative semantic meanings and construe a contradictory interaction.