The sociolinguistics of health and illness: Unsettling global ‘centres’ and ‘peripheries’ in health communication research

Abstract

The importance of effective health communication for successful healthcare outcomes is nowadays well established. While technological advances and scientific discoveries expand our understanding of health and illness, what ultimately matters for improving healthcare outcomes is how this new knowledge generated by modern technologies is applied in real life, that is how it is communicated to and among patients, healthcare professionals, as well as other involved parties (e.g. health policy makers). Paradoxically, while many of the health-related technological advances originate from the ‘nonAnglo-’/‘peripheral’ contexts, when it comes to health communication, there is a strong tendency to downplay and marginalize the scope and the impact of this ripe research tradition in these ‘other’ contexts. The panel brings together an international group of linguistics working in the area of health communication in different ‘centres’ and ‘peripheries’. The overarching aim is to problematize the hegemony of dominant (typically, Anglocentric) traditions in health communication research, in particular in relation to models of knowledge, knowledge production and dissemination. The panel aims to revisit the centre/periphery binary and unpack the dynamic relationship between them. We problematize the implied linearity in the ‘core’-‘periphery’ dichotomy, and push for new ways of interpreting health realities and the sociolinguistics of health and illness. Drawing on a diverse range of empirical data from primary and secondary healthcare contexts across the globe, the panel participants share and probe analyses and meta-reflections on the empirical, epistemological and theoretical foundation of current and completed projects. The panel aims to shed light on the heterogeneity and complexity of health care contexts and provide directions for further research in the field.