How to refer to ‘diabetes’? Language in online health advice

SUMMARY The adaptation of vocabulary between communication partners, i.e. the lexical entrainment phenomenon, is well documented. This study investigates whether the phenomenon can also be found in computer-mediated communication between experts and laypersons. The respondents, who are medical experts (n ¼ 46), answered to fictitious patients’ queries on health problems. Language technicality within patients’ queries was manipulated. One version contained certain concepts in everyday language, the other in technical language. Do experts adapt the vocabulary in their replies to that in the inquiry? Detailed analyses provide evidence that experts not only use the inquiry vocabulary, but also adapt the content of their answers to the technicality of the inquiry. Surprisingly, though queries differ in the use of vocabulary experts attributed very similar prior knowledge to the fictitious patient while providing them with very different replies. The results are discussed with respect to the implications for health counselling and for theoretical assumptions about adaptation in net-based discourse. Copyright # 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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