Abstract
Tongue Photos and the Centrality of Materiality in Traditional Chinese Medicine Telehealth Consultations
Anne Schluter (Department of English and Communication, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University)
By their very nature, telehealth consultations draw attention to materiality – or, rather, the lack thereof – as patients discuss bodies that practitioners cannot examine directly. Indeed, the perceived deficiencies of these modes of interaction underline the importance of embodied sociolinguistics (Bucholtz & Hall, 2016) in health communication contexts. This focus is especially pronounced in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) consultations, which emphasize the practitioners’ direct observation of a diverse array of physical cues to formulate diagnoses and prescribe individualized treatments. As a means of circumventing this challenge posed by the absence of patients’ bodies, the TCM practitioner in the current study exploits digital tools by requiring all patients to send her photographs of their tongues via WhatsApp prior to consultation, thereby highlighting a heightened role for “alternative modalities” (Kress 2009) in this setting.
As part of a larger study that analyzes observation and interview data from patients, practitioners, and clinical assistants [N=40] at a Hong Kong TCM clinic, this paper takes a deep dive into one practitioner’s use of tongue photos – rather than patient descriptions – as a means of directly observing patients’ current health conditions within the limitations of telehealth consultations. While patients can describe their tongues according to the parameters outlined by the practitioner, they commonly fail to incorporate the nuance of observational details that come with TCM expertise, resulting in potentially inaccurate interpretations of symptoms and treatment effectiveness. Accordingly, expert opinion in this context relies on the pre-discursive materiality of tongue photos, which showcase an example of “the centrality of materiality” (Karimzad & Catedral, 2022: 23) over discourse for this type of TCM patient care.
Anne Schluter (Department of English and Communication, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University)
By their very nature, telehealth consultations draw attention to materiality – or, rather, the lack thereof – as patients discuss bodies that practitioners cannot examine directly. Indeed, the perceived deficiencies of these modes of interaction underline the importance of embodied sociolinguistics (Bucholtz & Hall, 2016) in health communication contexts. This focus is especially pronounced in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) consultations, which emphasize the practitioners’ direct observation of a diverse array of physical cues to formulate diagnoses and prescribe individualized treatments. As a means of circumventing this challenge posed by the absence of patients’ bodies, the TCM practitioner in the current study exploits digital tools by requiring all patients to send her photographs of their tongues via WhatsApp prior to consultation, thereby highlighting a heightened role for “alternative modalities” (Kress 2009) in this setting.
As part of a larger study that analyzes observation and interview data from patients, practitioners, and clinical assistants [N=40] at a Hong Kong TCM clinic, this paper takes a deep dive into one practitioner’s use of tongue photos – rather than patient descriptions – as a means of directly observing patients’ current health conditions within the limitations of telehealth consultations. While patients can describe their tongues according to the parameters outlined by the practitioner, they commonly fail to incorporate the nuance of observational details that come with TCM expertise, resulting in potentially inaccurate interpretations of symptoms and treatment effectiveness. Accordingly, expert opinion in this context relies on the pre-discursive materiality of tongue photos, which showcase an example of “the centrality of materiality” (Karimzad & Catedral, 2022: 23) over discourse for this type of TCM patient care.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Publication status | Not published / presented only - 27 Jun 2024 |
| Event | Sociolinguistics Symposium : Orindariness and Innovation - Curtain University, Perth, Australia Duration: 9 Jul 2023 → 14 Jul 2024 Conference number: 25 https://pragmatics.international/page/Brussels2023 |
Conference
| Conference | Sociolinguistics Symposium |
|---|---|
| Abbreviated title | SS25 |
| Country/Territory | Australia |
| City | Perth |
| Period | 9/07/23 → 14/07/24 |
| Internet address |
Keywords
- Materiality
- traditional Chinese Medicine
- telehealth