语言与健康的关系:标记、媒介与资源

The Relationship between Language and Health:Index,Medium,and Resource

随着生活水平的不断提高,个体和社会对健康的关注范围更广、程度更高,语言作为人类的沟通工具,与健康有着密不可分的关系,因此我们尝试从语言学的角度厘清语言与健康的多重关系。基于国内外研究语言与健康的相关文献,我们认为在语言与健康的关系中,语言既是标记,也是媒介和资源。语言表现本身可以指向个体的健康状态,也是构成个体某些健康维度的本体;语言是传播健康信息和进行健康活动的重要媒介;语言还具有辅助个体、社会与国家实现健康目标的资源属性。在深入探讨语言与健康多重关系的同时,也希冀拓宽基于语言学的健康及健康活动研究的视野。

With continuous improvement of people’s living conditions in modern societies,health-related issues have become one of the major concerns attracting increasing attention.Language,as the major vehicle for human communication,is closely related to and plays important roles in health-related activities.Many scholars from diff erent disciplines have examined the relationship between language and health from diff erent perspectives.Drawing on previous studies and adopting a linguistic perspective,we argue that language takes on multiple roles,namely as an index,medium,and resource,in its relation to health.First,an individual’s language behavior may be seen as indexical and constitutive of certain aspects of one’s state of health.Second,language serves as an important medium through which to disseminate health information and implement health activities.Third,language also provides useful resources to realize health goals for the individual,the community,and the nation.By exploring the relationship between language and health,we hope to broaden the vision for linguistic research on health and health-related activities.