La métaphore, outil conceptuel et didactique en anglais médical

As a counterpoint to the hypertechnicity of current medical language, metaphor is a key in patient/therapist exchange; ignored or negative, it can lead to refusals; contextualized and adapted, it can help the patient, at best, to recapture his/her body’s potential through poetry. English for Specific Purposes can teach the medical student how to decode, for instance the war metaphor borrowed from military art, which is commonly found in healing arts (“Medicine is War”*). Exploring this mental space invites the searcher to go deeper into the contextual and conceptual networks of care practice. Taking disease as an “invasion” to “be fought” with “heavy weapons” to “eradicate” “evil” instead of “yielding” to it, reveals aggressivity, whereas considering it as a “personal initiation” or a “natural unbalance” favours a more harmonious and holistic vision of what is at stake. Our analysis is grounded on the differences of approach between Western Medicine and Traditional Chinese Medicine.* Hodgkin Paul, “Medicine is war: and other medical metaphors” in British Medical Journal Vol. 29, 21-28 December 1985