Legal discourse in informed consent templates for cardiac surgery: a linguistic analysis
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.32782/2617-3921.2025.27.101-113Keywords:
informed consent, interdiscursivity, legal terminology, syntax complexity, nominalization, hedging, patient-centered communicationAbstract
This study investigates the linguistic features of legal discourse in informed consent templates (ICTs) for cardiac surgery, also focusing on their structure, readability, and communicative effectiveness. Informed consent is an essential legal and ethical requirement in medical practice, ensuring transpar- ency, patient autonomy, and shared decision-making. However, the hybrid nature of ICTs, where medical and ethical discourses intersect, often results in complex language that challenges patient comprehension.The research is based on the discourse analysis of 50 ICTs from U.S. healthcare institutions, with a focus on lexical, grammatical, and structural aspects. It has been revealed that medical discourse prevails in the texts, significantly shaping their linguistic characteristics, though legal discourse adds to the overall complexity and formalization of the texts, ensuring voluntary decision-making for patients and safeguarding healthcare providers from liability. The study highlights the interdiscursive nature of ICTs, where legal language intersects with medical terminology to balance patient comprehension with legal sufficiency. This dual function, while necessary for adherence to ethical and legal standards, often results in increased textual density and reduced readability, posing challenges to effective patient communication. Other linguistic features such as nominalization, passive voice, specialized legal terminology, and lengthy sentence structures enhance the formal and precise nature of these documents.Volitional verbs, legal hedging through modal verbs, and standardized legal phrasing ensures compliance with regulatory and institutional guidelines. Findings suggest that while ICTs aim to balance medical accuracy with legal sufficiency, their complexity often reduces patient comprehension. Readability assessments indicate that these documents are written at an advanced level, potentially hindering informed decision-making. The study highlights the importance of simplifying language, reducing syntactic complexity, and improving clarity to enhance accessibility that is of a great importance for doctor-patient communication in high-risk medical situations.
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