A linguistic analysis of Chinese patients’ attitudes using appraisal theory as reflected through translation

Abstract

Since 2013, the Chinese government has allowed couples to have a second child. This alleviation of the one child policy has encouraged many Chinese to come to Thailand to undergo an In-Vitro Fertilization (IVF) program.

In this study, the researcher investigated Chinese patients’ attitudes towards the medical service personnel. This involved how patients view the doctors, staff, interpreters, facilities, and the service they received. One of the main issues was the language barrier, when patients could not speak Thai and the staff could not speak Chinese. Interpreters were used in interviewing patients and both the Chinese and English data recorded and transcribed.

The linguistic framework of appraisal based on a functional approach to language involving affect (feelings/emotions), judgment (criticize, praise) and appreciation (evaluate and comment) outlined by Martin and Rose (2007) was used to assess the attitude of the Chinese patients toward the healthcare providers in an IVF department.

The findings reflected the prosody of waves illustrating positive and negative attitudes. This detailed procedure was used to avoid the issue of the findings simply being labeled as ‘commentary’ rather than a semantic analysis reflected in the English translations of the texts from the interviews.

The pedagogical implications for teaching translation in Chinese universities are also discussed. Baker’s (1992) and House’s (2015) guidelines to develop translation quality assessment is suggested as one way in which the teaching of translation in general can be improved.