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Chapter 3. Medical topics and style from 1500 to 2018

A corpus-driven exploration

Abstract

This chapter investigates changes in medical topics, style and language across 500 years, from 1500 to 2018. To do so, we employ data-driven methods of Computational Linguistics and Digital Humanities: document classification, topic modelling, and automatically constructed conceptual maps. We trace changes from traditional thinking in the scholastic period to empirical methods, professionalised medicine, and finally the increasing importance of data, statistics and clinical studies, away from symptom-centred medicine. We conclude that medical discourse has undergone radical changes and that data-driven methods reflect these changes and offer an unprecedented overview. We also critically discuss shortcomings of our data and methods.

Abstract

This chapter investigates changes in medical topics, style and language across 500 years, from 1500 to 2018. To do so, we employ data-driven methods of Computational Linguistics and Digital Humanities: document classification, topic modelling, and automatically constructed conceptual maps. We trace changes from traditional thinking in the scholastic period to empirical methods, professionalised medicine, and finally the increasing importance of data, statistics and clinical studies, away from symptom-centred medicine. We conclude that medical discourse has undergone radical changes and that data-driven methods reflect these changes and offer an unprecedented overview. We also critically discuss shortcomings of our data and methods.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Preface vii
  4. Chapter 1. Corpora, pragmatics, and historical medical discourse 1
  5. Part I. Tracing discursive changes
  6. Chapter 2. “A geography of names” 23
  7. Chapter 3. Medical topics and style from 1500 to 2018 49
  8. Chapter 4. Medical discourse in Late Modern English 79
  9. Chapter 5. Survival or death 105
  10. Chapter 6. Towards a local grammar of stance expression in Late Modern English medical writing 127
  11. Chapter 7. “Die Blumenzeit der Frau” 153
  12. Part II. Changing functions, roles and representations
  13. Chapter 8. Language, labour and ideology 179
  14. Chapter 9. Unhappy patients and eminent physicians 203
  15. Chapter 10. The discursive dynamics of personal experience narratives and medical advice in 18th-century British consultation letters 229
  16. Chapter 11. Communicating authority 251
  17. Chapter 12. How old is old? 273
  18. Chapter 13. The popularization of learned medicine in late seventeenth-century England 297
  19. Index 317
Corpus Pragmatic Studies on the History of Medical Discourse
This chapter is in the book Corpus Pragmatic Studies on the History of Medical Discourse
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.330.03sch

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Preface vii
  4. Chapter 1. Corpora, pragmatics, and historical medical discourse 1
  5. Part I. Tracing discursive changes
  6. Chapter 2. “A geography of names” 23
  7. Chapter 3. Medical topics and style from 1500 to 2018 49
  8. Chapter 4. Medical discourse in Late Modern English 79
  9. Chapter 5. Survival or death 105
  10. Chapter 6. Towards a local grammar of stance expression in Late Modern English medical writing 127
  11. Chapter 7. “Die Blumenzeit der Frau” 153
  12. Part II. Changing functions, roles and representations
  13. Chapter 8. Language, labour and ideology 179
  14. Chapter 9. Unhappy patients and eminent physicians 203
  15. Chapter 10. The discursive dynamics of personal experience narratives and medical advice in 18th-century British consultation letters 229
  16. Chapter 11. Communicating authority 251
  17. Chapter 12. How old is old? 273
  18. Chapter 13. The popularization of learned medicine in late seventeenth-century England 297
  19. Index 317
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