Language, Health and Culture: Problematizing the Centers and Peripheries of Healthcare Communication Research

Language, Health and Culture brings together contributions by linguistic scholars working in the area of health communication in Asia--in particular, in Hong Kong, Mainland China, Singapore, Japan and Taiwan.

Olga Zayts-Spence and Susan M. Bridges, along with the contributors, draw on a diverse range of authentic data from different (primary, secondary, digital) healthcare contexts across Asia. The contributions probe empirical analyses and meta-reflections on the empirical, epistemological and theoretical foundations of doing research on language and health communication in Asia. While many of the medical and technological advances originate from the ’non-English-dominant’/’peripheral’ contexts, when it comes to health communication, there is a strong tendency to downplay and marginalize the scope and the impact of the ripe research tradition in these contexts. The contributions to the edited volume problematize the hegemony of dominant (Anglocentric) traditions in health communication research by highlighting culture- and context-specific ways of interpreting different health realities through linguistic lenses.

Olga Zayts-Spence is an Associate Professor, School of English, the University of Hong Kong (HKU). She is the Director of HKU Research and Impact Initiative on Communication in Healthcare (RIICH) that brings together researchers in health communication, social sciences, education and medicine. Dr. Zayts’ interdisciplinary research agenda focuses on language and communication issues in various healthcare settings, including prenatal screening, genetic counselling, and more recently mental health. Dr. Zayts is a Board member of Mind Hong Kong, a mental health charity, and an Advisory Board member of City Mental Health Alliance, an organization which aims to promote mentally healthy workplaces. Dr. Zayts has published widely on a range of healthcare communication-related issues. She is the author of ＂Language and Culture and Work＂ (Routledge, with S. Schnurr).