Language matters: a linguist’s view on medicine

Abstract

Language matters. I have seen this simple statement more times than I care to remember. It is used by patients, nurses, psychologists, doctors and many other healthcare professionals. In this editorial I would like to offer a view of what a statement means to a linguist. And so, first, what we say does not just mean, it means something in a particular context; second, even more importantly, language does not consist only of words, and this is why medicine and medics should focus on their ‘way of speaking’.