Fieldwork and design of a linguistic corpus to analyze empathy in doctor-patient interactions in oral surgery consultations

Abstract

This article aims to present the design and compilation of one of the oral corpora that constitute the basis of analysis of the VarGEmpatLing project (Generic Variation of Linguistic Empathy fot its acronym in Spanish). The main goal of this project lies in analysing the mechanisms and linguistic resources available in Spanish that favor empathy in a very specific context of interaction: the medical-health field. To this end, as a theoretical framework, the concept of empathy and some of the pragmatic strategies that favour it are reviewed, on the one hand. And, on the other hand, the fundamental bases of the design of oral text corpora are examined. Next, the concrete process of designing the CAEmIM-P corpus is presented and its limitations are outlined, without forgetting the consequences of the inevitable researcher's paradox. Finally, a set of examples of empathy-enhancing pragmatic strategies drawn from the compiled corpus is given. The paper closes with a discussion on future lines of analysis.