Browsing by Author "Basweti, Nobert Ombati"

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    Argumentation in doctor-patient consultations in EkeGusii: A pragma-dialectical approach
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2018-12) Basweti, Nobert Ombati; Visser, Marianna W.; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts Social Sciences. Dept. of African languages.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This dissertation investigates the argumentative discourse of (Eke)Gusii doctor-patient consultations in Kenya using the framework of the extended pragma-dialectical theory of argumentation. The study particularly investigates how Gusii doctors and Gusii patients strategically manoeuvre in resolving differences of opinion through the analysis of simulated medical consultations in (Eke)Gusii. The data for the research constituted transcripts of audio recordings of twelve consultation simulations conducted in (Eke)Gusii involving Gusii doctors and Gusii simulated patients with already diagnosed cases of HIV and AIDS, diabetes or cancer at The Kisii Teaching and Referral Hospital, a public hospital in Kenya. The analysis conducted employed the pragma-dialectical method which entailed the interpretation, reconstruction and evaluation of the dialogues. Utilising the model of critical discussion, the study also assessed the display of communication accommodation and attitudinal aspects of evaluative language use in strategic manoeuvring in doctor-patient consultations. This multiperspective study establishes that the interplay of the macro contextual exigencies of contemporary western medicine and the traditional Gusii sociocultural belief system concerning illness, which determine the nature and properties of strategic manoeuvring in the (Eke)Gusii doctor-patient consultation give rise to a hybrid of genres of consultation and persuasion. Displaying explicit and invoked evaluative language, the Gusii doctors and Gusii patients continually exploit linguistic and psychological convergence or divergence in their choice of presentational devices to accommodate the institutional constraints of the two institutions and realising the composite institutional point. The study identifies and characterises the prototypical pattern of argumentation in the Gusii medical consultation, as one in which Gusii doctors and Gusii patients employ pragmatic argumentation as the main argumentation to defend a desirable effect of a prescriptive standpoint. The findings of the study indicate that symptomatic argumentation or other pragmatic arguments entail the support argumentation pattern for both parties but with diverse sources of authority. The sociocultural, macro and discursive contextual circumstances of the Gusii medical consultation determine the supporting argumentation and responses to the critical questions of pragmatic arguments. The study concludes that argumentation in the (Eke)Gusii medical consultation presents empirical evidence for the enhancement of the strategic manoeuvre design of the extended pragmadialectical theory with elements of evaluative language use and communication accommodation.