On the afternoon of Friday, May 12th, 2023, the 113th Peking University Medical Humanities Forum was held at Room 709, Yifu Teaching Building, Peking University Health Science Center. Tian Hailong, Distinguished Professor of China University of Petroleum (Beijing), Professor of Tianjin Foreign Studies University, doctoral supervisor, Honorary President of Sociolinguistics Branch of the Chinese Language Society, Secretary General and Vice President of the Discourse Studies Committee of the China Association for Comparative Studies of English and Chinese, was invited to deliver a lecture entitled “The Basic Research Methods of Discursive Interaction Studies and Case Example”. Professor Guo Liping (School of Health Humanities, Peking University) chaired the lecture. Nearly 30 teachers and students from the departments of Language and Culture in Medicine and so on attended this lecture.

Professor Tian’s lecture consisted of four parts: the introduction to critical discourse analysis, the basic concepts and research methods of discourse interaction, the research cases of discourse interaction between Traditional Chinese Medicine and Western Medicine, and the enlightenment and prospects of discourse interaction studies.

In the first part, Professor Tian introduced the current development of critical discourse analysis and its corresponding three W’s: Who (representative scholar of critical discourse studies), What (definition and approach of critical discourse studies), and Why (three stages of critical discourse analysis).

In the second part, Professor Tian introduced the definition of “discourse”, the paradigm of “discourse research”, the difference between “interaction” and “communication”, the difference between “interaction” and “conversation”, as well as the concepts of social interaction, verbal interaction, symbolic interaction and so forth.

In the third part, Professor Tian used the online interview of CCTV host Bai Yansong with Professor Zhang Boli (Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and President of Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine), as the material for observation, and he explained a horizontal discourse interaction: the interaction between Traditional Chinese Medicine discourse and Western Medicine discourse.

In the fourth part, Professor Tian emphasized the importance of human initiative. He pointed out that if the cognitive linguistics in China can focus on that how the communicative consequences was led by language users’ initiative in the social cognitive process. Moreover, the reasons for the uncertainty, contingency, and temporary characteristics of these consequences should be explored. It would objectively, truthfully, and scientifically present the process of the speaker interpreting the meaning of the discourse, while also providing a deeper explanation of the mechanism by which the speaker’s ideology connects language forms and communicative consequences.

After the lecture, the audience actively asked questions, and a heated discussion on the issues of: the researches on doctor-patient interaction, intertextuality, context, hybridity was carried out among Professor Tian and the audience.

In the end, Professor Guo Liping presented a book to Professor Tian and expressed gratitude to him. After that, Professor Tian came to Room 726, Yifu Teaching Building to further communicate with members of the Narrative Medicine Research Center in Peking University Health Science Center.

Department of Language and Culture in Medicine