Semiotic Collisions and the Metapragmatics of Culture Change in Dr. Song Yujin's “Chinese Medical Psychology”

Abstract

This paper is about interaction in the clinic of Dr. Song Yujin, a physician who practices “Chinese medical psychology” in Beijing, China. In particular, we highlight how Dr. Song challenges deep‐seated ideas about family, personhood, and healing among his patients. Through close study of one interaction that Dr. Song has with a patient and her family, we demonstrate how Dr. Song draws upon prosody, gaze, teaching talk, and terminology to construct a local metapragmatic framework within which his utterances, gestures, and other semiotic devices can be interpreted as appropriate and familiar yet also strange and challenging. By examining Dr. Song's approach as it occurs in a contentious clinical “border zone” involving texts, bodies, and medical practices, we demonstrate how an emphasis on the micropolitics of interaction in specific clinical contexts can complement the scholarly study of cultural, social, medical, and personal change over time. This approach, we argue, has broad implications for the ways in which linguistic anthropology can contribute to the ethnographic study of cultural change as it emerges in complex interactions that often hinge on the tension between cooperation and resistance.

Culture inside: Scale, intimacy, and chronotopic stance in situated narratives

“…The interviews were conducted with both ethnographers present and were then carefully transcribed and analyzed upon their return to the United States. The Chinese data derive from Pritzker's research, conducted over three summers at New Life, a Beijing center for mind, body, and spirit (2014–2016), where she conducted an ethnography focused on the activities and individuals involved with xinling chengzhang or ‘psychospiritual development’ (Pritzker 2016; Pritzker & Liang 2018; Pritzker & Duncan 2019). Psychospiritual development is a growing industry that overlaps with what has been called the ‘psychoboom’ in contemporary China (Huang 2014; Kuan 2015; Yang 2018).…”

“…Our second example derives from Pritzker's study at New Life, the Beijing ‘mind-body-spirit’ center where she conducted research from 2014 to 2016. Though a detailed explanation of what psychospiritual growth consists of is beyond our scope in this article, it is important to note that one of the major ways that Pritzker has been approaching it in her ongoing analysis of the material is as a search for love born out of a desire to ‘become mature’ (Pritzker 2016; Pritzker & Liang 2018). Becoming mature through psychospiritual growth workshops points, specifically, to the cultivation of skills in fully knowing and loving oneself, the ability to experience and manage one's emotions, and the strength to achieve success in relationships with partners, children, parents, and friends.…”

Legitimizing state violence: A comparative positioning analysis of discourses from the government and citizen supporters of the antidrug operations.

“…This conceptualization emerges partly from Austin's (1962) and Searle's (1969) seminal introduction of speech act theory (Harré, 2012;Kayi-Aydar, 2019). The theory has since been developed within the field of linguistic anthropology to better investigate the negotiation of power between cultural actors (Berman, 2014;Faudree, 2012;Pizziconi, Giordano, & Ferrante, 2018;Pritzker & Liang, 2018). Other research in this field also explore manipulations of the various aspects of language itself to control legitimacy, albeit without clear reference to speech act theory (Cooper & Nguy ễn, 2015;Davis, 2012;Guzmán, 2014;Rosa, 2016).…”

Discursive strategies for addressing patients’ disalignment with diagnosis in online medical consultations in China

“…It is widely recognized that patients often express disalignment with their doctors, both in western contexts (see Lindström and Weatherall, 2015; Peräkylä, 2002) and China (see Pritzker and Liang, 2018; Yao and Ma, 2017; Zhao and Ma, 2020). Disalignment in face-to-face consultations is frequently externalized by means of paralinguistic or non-verbal cues, such as silence (see Koenig, 2011; Lindström and Weatherall, 2015), stand-alone head nod (Koenig, 2011), nervous or suppressed laughter (see Haakana, 2001; Landmark et al, 2017; Pritzker and Liang, 2018) together with looking down (see Haakana, 2001; Landmark et al, 2017). Delay in a patient’s response can also indicate non-alignment (Schegloff, 2007).…”