Theresa Schnedermann

The book presents the initial research findings of the scientific network "Linguistics and Medicine" Patho- and Salutodiscourses in the interplay of objective diagnosis, interactive mediation, and media constitution, founded in 2017 and funded by the German Research Foundation. It addresses processes of knowledge constitution, negotiation, and transfer related to health and (both mental and somatic) illnesses from various linguistic, medical, historical, and sociological perspectives. Using data and methods from conversation analysis, corpus linguistics, discourse analysis, medicine, and sociology, current and socially relevant questions in doctor-patient communication, public mass media discourses, and specialized communication are explored in an interdisciplinary dialogue. The focus is on specific medical conditions and their semiotic construction, such as schizophrenia, HIV/AIDS, Alzheimer’s, depression, various interactive practices like expressions of empathy, clarification, and emotionalization in doctor-patient conversations, as well as processes of joint knowledge negotiation in online forums and professional constructions of notions of normality and deviation.