What do the patient do as he/she speaks? Patient’s narrative under a discursive-pragmatic perspective

Abstract

When interacting with health professionals, what do sick people do as they speak? How is human communication performed within complex practices such as the ones concerned with health? This paper is aimed at a refl ection over these issues to support the understanding about human communication when focused on the agency of subjects within a given discourse. It is also intended to cooperate with the refl ection over the importance of narrative not only as a space of intermediation for the practice at issue, but rather as a new way for the construction of knowledge, including scientifi c knowledge. The perspective that passes through all the parts of the refl ection is pragmatics, which understands language as being performative (Austin, 1975) and a place of excellence for the construction of identity (Rajagopalan, 2006, 2006a, 2003, 2003a).