Amy Devitt
  • Home
  • About
  • CV and Resume
  • Publications
    • Books
    • Articles and Essays
    • Talks, Seminars, Workshops
    • Occasional Pieces
  • Genre-Colored Glasses

Genre-colored glasses

Thoughts on genre, language, grammar, and other
rhetorical and linguistic norms

Flu, Genres, and the Rhetoric of Medicine

2/4/2017

0 Comments

 
I love influenza, skiing pig
Immer Lebend, ¿INFLUENZA?, AJA Y QUE MÁS....JAJAJ, flickr, CC license
​Coming to you still alive from the home infirmary of Lawrence, Kansas, a state in the midst of the big influenza outbreak . . . Or is that epidemic?

According to the Center for Disease Control, Kansas is in the very highest category of “Influenza-Like Illness.” Lucky us.

Yes, I came down with the flu this week. If mine is the milder version you get when you’ve had a flu shot, as I’ve had, then I pity the completely unprotected. At its peak, I had a fever of 103.9. OK, I guess I’m bragging a bit. I’ve never had such a high fever, and I survived. Of course, it took that night’s fever to get me to call the doctor’s office in the morning about my “bad cold.” Nope, flu.

So now I get to use the common metaphor of flu--flu as a battle.  I’ve been battling the flu since Wednesday, after fighting it off for a couple of days, but I survived its onslaught and will live to fight another day!

I lack the brain power this week to produce what I had planned—in nonacademic language, a listing and reflection on some of the big ideas about genres that have been built from Carolyn Miller’s originating article on “Genre as Social Action.” Carolyn is coming to my university this coming week to give a major lecture, and we’re very excited here. Fortunately, my flu will be well into recovery by then, my doctor assures me, but not in time for this blog post.
 
You can read about Carolyn on the NCState site. And some great stuff about genre on the genre across borders website, started by Carolyn and her students at North Carolina State.

So instead of a list of brilliant ideas from Carolyn, about all I’ve got right now is a brief list of the genres of patienthood that have surrounded me the past several days:
 
Prescriptions
Patient information sheets
Pill bottle labels
Thermometer readings
Doctor consultations
Credit card receipts from copayments
Piles of used tissues (oh wait, not a genre, and too much information)

Fun stuff, huh? For some more interesting discussions of the rhetoric of medicine, you might take a look at one of many fascinating studies and discussions others have published. Two of my favorites--
 
Judy Segal, Health and the Rhetoric of Medicine

Carol Berkenkotter, Patient Tales: Case Histories and the Uses of Narrative in Psychiatry

And many more listed, along with lots of information about the rhetoric of medicine, on the website run by Rhetoricians of Health and Medicine.

​Until next week, when I will surely be well enough to celebrate Valentine's Day . . . or not.
Picture
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Author
    ​Amy Devitt

    I'm a genre-lover and language nerd who likes to write about the fascinating effects of genres (like grocery lists, blogs, and greeting cards, as well as mysteries and romances) on how we read and write and even live our lives. I also notice grammar a lot, both the "proper" kind and the fun kind, like grammar jokes.  For more, read my post on "What I Notice." I write this blog weekly to point out what I see and in hopes that you will tell me what you see, too. 

      Would you like to be notified when I publish a new post?

    Subscribe to Newsletter

    This website uses marketing and tracking technologies. Opting out of this will opt you out of all cookies, except for those needed to run the website. Note that some products may not work as well without tracking cookies.

    Opt Out of Cookies

    Archives

    June 2021
    August 2020
    July 2020
    December 2019
    August 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    January 2019
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    August 2015

    Previous Posts

    All
    7 Words Not To Say
    Acceptance Speeches
    Acceptance Speech Formula
    Ads
    Alternative Truth
    Alternative Words
    Amy Schumer
    An Academic Learns To Blog
    Apologies
    April Fools' Day
    Bad Apologies
    Bad Public Apologies
    Basketball
    Birthdays
    Bits & Pieces
    Blogging
    Boxing Day
    Business As Usual
    Busted Brackets
    Can Words Kill?
    Categories
    Children's Genres
    Choosing A Response
    Commemorating 9/11
    Commencing Graduation
    Community
    Community And Genres
    Community And Quiet
    Condolences
    Distraction Genres
    Doing Hawaiian
    Email
    Essays
    Evils Done In The Name Of Categories
    Family Reunions
    Fandom
    Father's Day
    Flu
    Funeral
    Generic Responses
    Genre
    Genre In A Scholarly Way
    Genre Reactions
    Genres Are Us
    Genres Matter
    Genre Tripping
    Good (and Bad) Apologies
    Good Sentences
    Graduation
    Greetings
    Hallmark Christmas Movies
    Halloween
    Hearing Or Trial Or Brawl
    Hi Readers!
    Holiday Greeting Cards
    Holidays
    How To Birth A Blog
    How Words Reflect & Shape Us
    Hurricanes And US
    Inaugural Address
    Indigenous Music
    Insults
    It's A Genre
    It's What You Mean
    Jet Lagged
    Labor Day
    Labor Day Genres
    Language And Genre
    Libraries
    Library Genres
    Literary Genres
    Locker Room Talk
    Making Connections
    Mass Shootings
    Meaning
    Memorial Day
    Mom's Day Cards
    Mother's Day
    Music Genres And Innovations
    Native American Musicians
    Never Forget
    New Year
    Normalizing Hatred
    Once In A Lifetime
    Patient As Medical History
    POTUS Tweets
    Preparing For Solar Eclipse
    Presidents Day
    Pronouns
    Psychology-of-genre
    Retirement
    Rhetoric-matters
    Rhetoric Still Matters
    Scenes Of Writing
    Scholarly Writing
    Solar Eclipse
    Syllabus
    Thanks Giving
    Thank You
    They Becomes Official
    Top 6 New Year's Genres
    TV Genres
    TV Genres Part 2
    Twelve Genres Of Christmas
    Twitter
    Understand Genre In Two Pictures
    Vacation
    Vacation Post Card
    Veterans Day
    Visual Genres
    Vote
    What A Syllabus Does
    What Does Alt-right Mean
    What Is A Declaration?
    What I Write About
    What Voice Recognition Software Doesn't Recognize
    When I'm Sorry Doesn't Work
    Which English Language?
    Who Is Your "They"?
    Who Is Your "We"?
    Words Can't Speak
    Words Matter
    Workshops
    WOTY Dumpster Fire
    Writing
    Writing Our Experiences
    You Know You're Old When

    RSS Feed

Copyright Amy Devitt © 2018
  • Home
  • About
  • CV and Resume
  • Publications
    • Books
    • Articles and Essays
    • Talks, Seminars, Workshops
    • Occasional Pieces
  • Genre-Colored Glasses