This paper attempts to explore the power relation between a doctor and a patient through the language they use at a consultation. The consultation is taken from YouTube. The doctor and the patient are women of different ages. | DOCTOR-PATIENT POWER RELATION: A SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS OF A DOCTOR-PATIENT CONSULTATION Nguyen Thanh Nga* Vietnam Military Medical University, 160 Phung Hung, Phuc La, Ha Dong, Hanoi, Vietnam Received 09 March 2017 Revised 29 April 2017; Accepted 16 May 2017 Abstract: This paper attempts to explore the power relation between a doctor and a patient through the language they use at a consultation. The consultation is taken from YouTube. The doctor and the patient are women of different ages. The doctor is much younger than the patient. The paper uses systemic functional linguistics as the main theoretical framework, following the top-down approach to analysis; particularly from the analysis of the consultation in terms of field, tenor and mode down to the analysis of the consultation in terms of transitivity, mood and modality. The results of the analysis have revealed that behind the language the doctor and the patient used in their interaction exists social relation in which the doctor has the power over the patient. Keywords: doctor-patient consultation/interaction, systemic functional linguistics, power 1. Introduction (1) For many years, there have been a number of research papers conducted to investigate the language use at doctor-patient consultations. Notably, these studies, mostly based on the Critical Discourse Analysis’s (CDA) theoretical lens (Fairclough 2001), have focused on the way doctors use their language to communicate with patients and on how doctors’ communicative behavior can influence their clients’ satisfaction, compliance and health (Ong et al 1995, Frankel 1990, Ruusuvori 2000, Heath 1992, Robinson & Heritage 2006, Ainsworth 1992). In Vietnam, besides some sociolinguistic and psychologist studies conducted by Long (2010), Chi et al (2012), Hung (2014), Dung et al (2010), Ha (2000), Hoa (2013) and Phuc (2000) that have shown doctors’ behavior and patients’ expectation, there has * Tel.: 84-982204246 Email: .
