Multimodal communicative acts of Thailand’s private hospital website promoting medical tourism

Websites of private hospitals are significant channels for delivering the communicative acts in relation to information of hospitals’ facilities and expertise to international medical tourists. However, studies that involved communicative acts have mainly focused on examining the language mode. It overlooked the multimodal perspective which hinder prospective international medical tourists from receiving the intended promotional messages. This study, therefore, aims to examine multimodal realisations of representative and commissive communicative acts in Thailand’s private hospital website. Within Systemic Functional Linguistic (SFL) perspective, Halliday & Matthiessen’s model of textual analysis (2004) and Daneš’ classification of thematic patterns (1974) were utilised for language analysis, while Kress and van Leeuwen’s (2006) framework was adopted for visual analysis. Three webpages from a Thai private hospital website were analysed in relation to theme types and thematic progression for textual function in language analysis, and information value, saliency and framing elements for compositional function in visual analysis. Results based on the analysis of the communicative acts in the selected webpages aimed to inform and persuade prospective medical tourists. The multimodal communicative acts created a technologically established, sophisticated, reliable and caring representation of Samitivej Hospital through the high occurrence of unmarked themes, reiteration patterns, salient visuals and absence of framing. The findings provided communicative strategies to promote medical tourism to copywriters, website designers and medical tourism stakeholders in designing such websites

Promoting medical tourism: a multimodal communicative framework in private hospitals from an intercultural perspective

The medical tourism industry, seriously affected by the coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19), must effectively communicate its online promotional messages to boost the sector. Given that the medical tourism sector is a global one, cultural diversity is also essential. Studies on cultural heterogeneity, however, have only looked at one type of discourse, primarily the linguistic mode. Previous research failed to consider the multimodal approach, which could have hindered anticipated promotional messages from reaching potential foreign medical tourists. This study examines how 12 hospital web pages from Malaysia and Singapore combine several modes to provide marketing messages to foreign medical tourists. From a Systemic Functional Linguistic (SFL) standpoint, linguistic analysis was conducted using Halliday and Matthiessen’s (2004) model of metafunction theory, while visual analysis was conducted using Kress and van Leeuwen’s (2006) framework. The multimodal data were further analyzed using Hall’s cultural dimension of context-dependency, which classifies cultures into high-context and low-context cultures. The selected Malaysian and Singaporean hospital web pages primarily exhibit characteristics commonly found in low-context cultures, including detailed code systems, clear and explicit messages, highly structured content, information focus, and linear organization. These findings were inconsistent with the existing intercultural communication literature, which typically associates Asian countries with high-context cultures. The study’s contribution in the form of a multimodal communicative framework aims to help stakeholders and copywriters in medical tourism understand potential cultural sensitivity and communicative strategies while designing successful medical tourism websites for international promotion. It is crucial for medical tourism websites to effectively deliver promotional messages to prospective medical tourists during this COVID-19 recovery phase as it can be one of the ways to establish trust and reliance

Exploring critical questioning among in-service ESL teachers using Socratic questioning technique

The development of pupils' critical thinking depends on their ability to ask thoughtful questions. Although the advantages of critical questioning to develop students' critical thinking abilities have been widely recognized, teachers' poor questioning abilities become the main area of concern among educators. This paper aims to highlight this issue by exploring the use of Socratic Questioning Technique (SQT) in enhancing in-service teachers’ critical questioning skills when writing reflections. An Action Research Design was adopted using multiple methods such as interview, document analysis and reflections. 13 in-service ESL teachers who enrolled in a one-semester Master of Education course with a focus on English Language Teaching participated in this study. This action research involved three phases which are: problem identification, intervention and evaluation. Two moments of intervention were conducted using Gibbs’ Reflective Model and Socratic Critical Questioning techniques. The data were analyzed thematically. The findings revealed that SQT managed to enhance their critical questioning technique as they started asking variety of questions such as clarification, evidence, reasoning and implication questions during the intervention. The interview also showed that they learned to be more critical, they knew how to ask critical questions and they also became more confident in giving feedback to others. In other words, SQT trained these teachers about dialogic skills which are pertinent for fostering the capacity for critical thought. Thus, SQT should be incorporated in Malaysia's teacher education system

A functional analysis of theme and thematic progression of private hospital websites

Medical tourism has been seriously affected by coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) that has become a huge threat to global economy. In mitigating this issue, attention needs to be given to the online promotional message strategy to boost medical tourism. However, there is a scarcity of work on medical tourism promotional discourse from the textual function perspective despite the considerable number of studies in other types of discourse. This study, therefore, aims to examine and compare the promotional discourse message strategies in Malaysia and Thailand’s private hospital websites. The analysis was based on Systemic Functional Linguistic (SFL) perspective, using Halliday & Matthiessen’s model of textual analysis (2004) and Daneš’ classification of thematic patterns (1974). A total of six webpages with three webpages of one Malaysian website and one Thai website were analysed in relation to theme type and thematic progression. The findings show that texts derived from the hospital websites in Malaysia and Thailand display similarities and differences pertaining to how the texts are organised in relation to their theme types and thematic patterns. Both websites from Malaysia and Thailand combined objectivity with subjectivity in choosing their themes and thematic progression since they have a preference for unmarked themes in combination with marked theme to inform and persuade readers. However, the Prince Court Medical Centre (PCMC, Malaysia) website was direct and cohesive with its short texts and use of textual themes, while the message in Samitivej Hospital (SH, Thailand) website was more indirect, less compact, and less cohesive as the texts were rather lengthy and interspersed with interpersonal themes. The findings can be a guide for copywriters, website designers or medical tourism stakeholders to be aware of meaning-making strategies in promoting medical websites for medical tourism purpose

Online promotion of private hospital promoting medical tourism : a multimodal analysis from a cultural perspective

The medical tourism industry, which was seriously affected by the coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19), needs to give attention to its online promotional message strategy to boost the industry. Cultural variability is also crucial since the market for the medical tourism industry is global. However, studies involving cultural variability have only focused on examining single discourse mode, mainly the linguistic mode and overlooked the multimodal perspective. This study, therefore, examined the way in which the Prince Court Medical Centre (PCMC), a private hospital in Malaysia is presented and how the various modes in the hospital's website are combined to deliver promotional messages to international medical tourists. A total of three web pages from the website of PCMC were analysed using the Systemic Functional Theory framework. This study employed Halliday’s metafunction theory (for language analysis and Kress and van Leeuwen’s model for image analysis. The ways in which the multimodal features of the website reflect communicative style from the cultural perspective were also explored. Hall’s (2000) cultural dimension of context dependency which classifies cultures into high-context and low-context cultures was used to present the analysis. The findings revealed that PCMC’s hospital website has elements that are mainly encountered in low-context cultures such as elaborated code systems as well as direct, explicit, and highly structured messages. The findings help create awareness of communicative strategies in designing medical tourism websites that involve meaning making through texts and images and the possible cultural interpretation especially among copywriters, website designers or medical tourism stakeholders