Discourse of Drug Information for Experts and Patients
41more accentuated in the expert version (example17) by the verbs to persist
and the adverbial constantly emphasizing the duration.
Active vs. passive
Particularly interesting is the description of clause patterns in which the
Figure-Ground allows for a cognitive explanation of the underlying
meaning(s).
Following the approach as developed by Langacker in his Cognitive
Grammar (1991, chs 7, 8) the syntactic differences between PILs and
SmPCs, and more particularly between the use of actives vs. passives, can
be explained by understanding clause patterns as a reflection of the
Figure/Ground distinction. From a cognitive viewpoint, in a simple
transitive clause the subject corresponds to the Figure, the object to the
Ground, and the verb expresses the relationship between Figure and
Ground. Regarding the corpus under investigation it is noticeable that the
active vs. passive voice is used in a deviant way, resulting in construals
with a different Figure/Ground constellation. As SmPCs are descriptive
explanatory scientific texts, their focus is primarily on the result of an
action and on the participant who is receiving or experiencing the action
(i.e. the medial patient) rather than on the participant doing the action.
Therefore, mostly the passive voice is used as it allows to highlight the
most important participants or events within clauses by placing them at the
beginning of the clause in subject position. This subject is the Figure,
which is profiled against the rest of the clause (Ground) as illustrated in
example (18):
(18) When pregnancy is diagnosed, treatment with angiotensin II receptor
antagonists should be stopped immediately, and, if appropriate,
alternative therapy should be started.As the above example shows, there are two Figures: (1) the substance
angiotensin II receptor which is profiled against the diagnosis of
pregnancy (which, in turn, is realized as a passive construction profiling
pregnancy as Figure against the action of diagnosing) and the termination
of treatment, which together represent the Ground; (2) the alternative
therapy, which is profiled against the Ground element (should be started).
In the corresponding PIL passage (example 19), by contrast, the active
voice is used, which changes the tone (personalization by means of
directly addressing the medical patient) and creates a construal with quite
a different Figure/Ground constellation: