A textual analysis of the American journal of Chinese medicine: from spirituality to science.

Abstract

This dissertation has taken as its principal object of study, the American Journal of Chinese Medicine. It has examined the textual features of that journal over a thirty-five year period as an indication of changes in the broader field of traditional Chinese medicine--how it is perceived and practiced by those in the field. The dissertation supplemented this textual analysis with interviews of practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine to see if these practitioners' reports of their own experiences in the field support the conclusion from the textual analysis. Specifically, this dissertation has been guided by three research questions. These research questions first look at what textual changes the AJCM has undergone over the last thirty-five years, and what do those changes explain about the culture of TCM as a whole. The rhetorical and linguistic features of the AJCM that were examined include: the use of headings, IMRD structure, biomedical noun-strings, a biomedical or traditional Chinese medical register, subject, audience, and article genre. Also, this study looks to answer the question, in what ways does the biomedicialization of TCM articles reflect change in traditional Chinese medicine? Finally, I sought to understand to what extent the ACJM has become more biomedicalized, and during this process, what has been lost or silenced. The results of this dissertation demonstrate and explain that over the last thirty-five years traditional Chinese medicine in America has become centered on biomedicine and the scientific method, which is a significant change from the early 1970s.