Journal
MEDICAL EDUCATION
Volume 47, Issue 1, Pages 40-48Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1111/medu.12098
Keywords
-
Funding
- Program of Experimental Medicine in the Department of Medicine at the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, Western University
Ask authors/readers for more resources
OBJECTIVES This paper considers the state of the science regarding language matters in medical education, with particular attention to two informal language practices: silence and humour. Silence and humour pervade clinical training settings, although we rarely attend explicitly to them. METHODS This paper considers the treatment of these topics in our field to date and introduces a selection of the scholarship on silence and humour from other fields, including philosophy, sociology, anthropology, linguistics and rhetoric. Particular attention is paid to distilling the theoretical and methodological possibilities for an elaborated research agenda around silence and humour in medical education. RESULTS These two language practices assume a variety of forms and serve a range of social functions. Episodes of silence and humour are intimately tied to their relational and institutional contexts. Power often figures centrally, although not predictably. CONCLUSIONS A rich theoretical and methodological basis exists on which to elaborate a research agenda around silence and humour in medical education. Such research promises to reveal more fully the contributions of silence and humour to socialisation in clinical training settings.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available