http://dspace.cityu.edu.hk:80/handle/2031/739 2013-05-01T01:46:28Z 2013-05-01T01:46:28Z Wang, Nan ( 王楠) http://dspace.cityu.edu.hk:80/handle/2031/6515 2012-08-07T07:43:42Z 2010-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: Making medical decisions in pediatric consultations : a conversation-analytic study of sequences and actions of physician-parent interaction in a Chinese hospital Authors: Wang, Nan ( 王楠) Abstract: This research investigates the physician-parent interaction when making medical decisions. Specifically, it examines how the interaction during the making of treatment and prescription decisions is accomplished through sequences of talks and particular turn designs within the treatment recommendation stage. Conversation Analysis (CA) is adopted as the methodology. Sixty video-recorded pediatric consultations have been collected in a hospital in mainland China. Fifty were transcribed and analyzed in considerable details. While studies on medical interaction and shared decision making in China do exist, the present study is a first attempt that approached the topic from CA's qualitative perspective. The findings show that treatment decisions interactions are organized in a way that parent acceptance is required to reach an agreement. The sequence structure normally follows two paths: (1) it will be minimal if the physician's treatment recommendation is followed by parent acceptance; and (2) it will be extended if the parent resists the recommendation (because physicians normally pursue parent acceptance until it is obtained). Parents and physicians' interactional resources for negotiating treatment decisions are also identified and described. In responding to physician's treatment recommendation, parents would either accept or resist with passive or active devices. Physicians will either pursue their acceptance of the original recommendation in various ways or offer alternative plans contingent on the patients' necessity, if parents resist their treatment recommendation. Prescription decision is also investigated. The data show that in making prescription decisions, physicians normally initiate a pre-prescribing sequence to see whether it is warranted to produce the prescribing sequence. Parent responses to physician's pre-prescribing questions are found consequential to the sequence trajectories. The physician proceeds to issue a prescription recommendation if the parent gives a 'go-ahead' response; the physician withholds the issuance of a recommendation the parent gives a 'blocking' response. The sequence will be truncated if the parent provides a 'request' response to the pre-prescribing question; the sequence will be expanded with insertion sequences or post-expansions, in which communication problems of various kinds are dealt with. It is also possible for parents to initiate the sequence for prescription decision. Notes: CityU Call Number: RJ26.3 .W36 2010; vi, 117 leaves 30 cm.; Thesis (M.Phil.)--City University of Hong Kong, 2010.; Includes bibliographical references (leaves 102-109)

2010-01-01T00:00:00Z Chinn, Cheuk Kit ( 陳卓傑) http://dspace.cityu.edu.hk:80/handle/2031/6510 2012-08-07T07:43:31Z 2011-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: A corpus-based study of predicates in Chinese : a descriptive overview Authors: Chinn, Cheuk Kit ( 陳卓傑) Abstract: In traditional Chinese grammar, predicates are known to be versatile and different syntactic categories other than verb phrases can be stand-alone predicates, most notably adjective phrases and noun phrases. Such intuition-based observations can be revisited with empirical evidence from authentic texts to give a more objective and quantitative description. This corpus-based study examines all the possible constructions of predicates in Chinese based on the Penn Chinese Treebank, a corpus of 500,000 words of newswire articles. The results show that verbal predicates, adjectival predicates, nominal predicates and predicates of other types constitute about 86.9%, 10.9%, 1.8% and 0.4% of the predicates in written Chinese respectively, which are similar to the proportion of a previous study. The high coverage (with an average of nearly 99%) of the syntactic constructions suggests that the extracted grammar rules are promising to cover unseen data. The empirical data also reveal that some constructions of predicates that are being used productively are not described in traditional grammar, offering complementary information to the intuition-based approach. Notes: CityU Call Number: PL1235 .C7 2011; v, 84 leaves : ill. 30 cm.; Thesis (M.Phil.)--City University of Hong Kong, 2011.; Includes bibliographical references (leaves 61-65)

2011-01-01T00:00:00Z Jiang, Chengzhi (江承志) http://dspace.cityu.edu.hk:80/handle/2031/6136 2011-05-25T01:15:00Z 2010-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: "Yuan (distance)" perceived through visual and verbal sign systems : with reference to bilingual catalogue entries of Chinese landscape paintings Authors: Jiang, Chengzhi (江承志) Abstract: The thesis represents an effort to investigate in the light of systemic-functional linguistics, cognitive semantics and visual perception theory the bilingual representations of "yuan (distance)" in catalogue entries of Chinese landscape paintings, with reference to the interplay of visual and verbal sign systems in museum. After a historic sketch of "yuan (distance)" in traditional Chinese painting discourse from the perspective of visual perception, the focus of the thesis is first of all put on the verbalization of visual-auditory distance cues in catalogue entries of Chinese landscape paintings on the basis of the analysis about three different layers on which the representation of "yuan (distance)" can be explored through six interrelations. With the aid of a cognitive functional model, then, linguistic investigation is to be conducted to exam the ways spatial expressions are formulated and focused in bilingual catalogue entries. The results are of value to expand knowledge concerning the implications of the organization and focalization of spatial information on the perception of "yuan (distance)". Finally, the cognitive functional model is applied to a case study. The analysis of the case focuses on: (1) visual distance cues in service of the representation of "yuan (distance)" in Guo Xi’s Early Spring; (2) the visual-verbal relevance between the artwork and its bilingual catalogue entries; and (3) the interlingual, intralingual and intertextual relations between different catalogue entries. The findings are: first, in bilingual representation, the shift of language may bring about the shift of information frames, as well as the shift of information perception. Thus, Chinese and English catalogue entries of the same artwork may be differentiated from one another in terms of their interlingual or intertextual properties. Second, both Chinese and English texts attempt to reflect in linguistic description the major features of Chinese landscape painting in three aspects: ordering, humanizing, and symbolizing pictorial objects in the landscape. This may contribute to elucidate how the communicative task is fulfilled in the production of the catalogue entry. Notes: CityU Call Number: P99 .J53 2010; iv, 111 leaves : ill. 30 cm.; Thesis (M.Phil.)--City University of Hong Kong, 2010.; Includes bibliographical references (leaves 93-100)

2010-01-01T00:00:00Z Pun, Fung Kan (潘鳳芹) http://dspace.cityu.edu.hk:80/handle/2031/5681 2010-03-18T04:28:25Z 2009-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: Linguistic analysis of English language writing of university students in Hong Kong Authors: Pun, Fung Kan (潘鳳芹) Abstract: The research focuses on investigating the development of university students’ writing ability in academic discourse in English. In the research, students’ English language writing ability is evaluated in terms of linguistic features which are objective and measurable, covering language formality, language complexity, and objectivity. The linguistic features are located at the lexicogrammatical level (for example, the occurrence of nominalization, attributive adjective, abbreviated forms etc.) and at the discourse level (relation of clauses). The data for the present study consists of the written work produced by the students who participated in the Language Companion Course (LCC) project carried out at City University of Hong Kong. The grammatical indicators denoting academic discourse in their writings are identified qualitatively and quantitatively. An evaluation matrix is established based on the features to optimize the analysis to allow comparison between courses, assignments, and versions. The results show that students have demonstrated improvement across versions and assignments in terms of grammatical accuracy, and slight improvement in the achievement on producing academic writing. Notes: CityU Call Number: PE1404 .P86 2009; xi, 154 leaves : col. ill. 30 cm.; Thesis (M.Phil.)--City University of Hong Kong, 2009.; Includes bibliographical references (leaves 124-134)

2009-01-01T00:00:00Z