Sara Vilar-Lluch
Representing Behavioral Pathology: The Importance of Modality in Medical Descriptions of Conduct, ADHD as Case Study
University of Nottingham|University of Reading
paper examines role modality resources eg may often diagnostic statistical manual mental disorders dsm5 representing behavioral pathology focusing particular attention deficit hyperactivity disorder adhd adhd diagnosis requires reports nonpractitioners eg carers teachers effective understanding behavioral descriptors lay community thus paramount importance study combines qualitative linguistic discourse analysis corpus approach study presence functions modality adopting systemic functional perspective toward language study argues dsm5 modality important linguistic resource conveying clinical significance inferred graduations recurrence probability however adopting features professional discourse representing behavioral pathology nonexperts especially resources inherently evaluative stresses need health literacy among lay social community accessibility health communication materials particularly nonpractitioners involved diagnosis practice