The characterization of a medical problem: an analysis of the writing on AIDS in medical science
Reeves, Carol A.
Reeves, Carol A.
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1989
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Abstract
This dissertation explores the ways a medical problem, AIDS, is established and validated in discourse and investigates the discourse resulting from such validation. The rhetorical efforts of those first reporting AIDS centered primarily on demonstrating the mysterious and surprising nature of a new phenomenon that could not be explained by existing knowledge. Writers' emphasis of morbidity and mortality and their use of a language of despair contributed to patterns of warning which characterize patients as victims and AIDS as invariably fatal. Other discursive patterns appear in the writing on AIDS. The practice of distinguishing risk groups involves discursive patterns of blame. Homosexual practice and the poverty in Haiti and Africa become part of the rhetorical structure of etiological arguments. AIDS also becomes a problem to be "owned" by successive owners--doctors, researchers, institutions--who battle for the privilege of defining AIDS and directing policies and attitudes. Finally, AIDS comes to be inscribed as a problem that can be solved by basic science. Within this pattern, the hopelessness and despair that occurred in patterns of warning are replaced by the rhetoric of reassurance resulting from writers' need to justify and validate their study. The growth of consensus may be observed in the transformations statements go through as they achieve fact status. As agreement grows, statements about the existence of AIDS or its viral cause move from speculative and conjectural comments in discussion sections to argumentative claims in the introductions. More factual statements lose references to origin and to the evidence that makes them true and become definitions. When consensus is achieved, the statement becomes part of implicit knowledge and may pass out of discourse, out of published papers, altogether. Finally, the discovery accounts of AIDS research written by Robert C. Gallo are examined. In these accounts, Gallo promotes the work done in his lab by appealing to premises about what counts as excellence in science. His reminders to the readers that his lab ventured out of mainstream science and tackled a problem few thought worth the effort, evoke the maverick spirit embedded in cultural memory.
Contents
Subject
Subject(s)
Exposition (Rhetoric)
Narration (Rhetoric)
AIDS (Disease) in mass media
Communication in science
Narration (Rhetoric)
AIDS (Disease) in mass media
Communication in science
Research Projects
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Journal Issue
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Dissertation
Description
Format
iii, 177 leaves
Department
English