Healthcare Narratives
| Code | School | Level | Credits | Semesters |
| ENGL4345 | English | 4 | N/A | April Full Year UK, Full Year UK, January Full Year UK |
- Code
- ENGL4345
- School
- English
- Level
- 4
- Credits
- N/A
- Semesters
- April Full Year UK, Full Year UK, January Full Year UK
Summary
This pod provides students with the opportunity to analyse a range of narratives produced in healthcare settings and health-related contexts. Narratives are central to our understanding of health and illness – in particular people’s personal experience of illness – and this pod will introduce students to a number of seminal healthcare narrative studies and approaches to narrative. Students will not only consider more traditional patient narratives of health (stories about health and disease and the impact of illness on people’s lives and identities), but will also consider the illness narratives of political leaders and literary narratives of illness, including accounts of mental illness such as depression. The pod further opens up the scope of narrative by critically examining the use of stories in the domain of the mass media and health information campaigns. Here students will critically examine not just linguistic rhetoric but also the use of visual communication in the role of health communication and health promotion, including the use of visual narrative in anti-vaccination discourse.
Target Students
Students registered on the School of English online masters scheme.
Assessment
- 100% Participation: Participation
Assessed by end of designated period
Educational Aims
This module comprises an optional component in the following pathways: Applied English, Applied Linguistics, Discourse and Communication, Health Communication, Language and Linguistics, and Professional Communication. As such, it contributes in its specific aims to the programme-level coverage of these pathways.Learning Outcomes
Demonstrate understanding of key concepts in the interdisciplinary field of narrative medicine.
Apply linguistic and semiotic concepts in the analysis of health and illness narratives.
Critically discuss how narrative and storytelling function in healthcare settings and contexts.
Demonstrate knowledge and skills acquired to the appropriate disciplinary and professional standard.
Assimilate and present subject-specific material in an appropriate format (assessed within the ‘Assessment Portfolio’ 1, 2 or 3).