Sentence and Discourse Features of Case Reports From a Stylistic Perspective

Abstract

A case report is a detailed report of the symptoms, signs, diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up of an individual patient. Belonging to the genre of science and technology, case reports, also as a sort of medical text, possesses its own unique characteristics in terms of style. This article conducts a stylistic analysis of the joint case report (Case 25-2022) published by the University of Washington, Massachusetts General Hospital, and Harvard Medical School in The New England Journal of Medicine, focusing on sentence and discourse characteristics, in order to identify the writing particularities of case reports. Regarding sentences, different sections of case reports project different tendencies in language styles. The section presenting the patient’s condition predominantly utilizes active voice sentences, while the examination section and differential diagnosis section mainly employs passive voice sentences. Also, case reports tend to utilize the third-person perspective via objective subject. In terms of discourse, case reports emphasize coherence between preceding and subsequent text, precise professional vocabulary, and accurate tense usage.