Cultural meaning in health communication

Abstract

Health concepts and issues are deeply embedded in culture. Communication about health needs to take this into account, particularly in a multicultural discourse where discourse members have different cultural backgrounds. Words and their meanings are not fixed as often displayed in dictionaries. Apart from cognitive meaning, there are also cultural meanings which are not revealed in lexical definition. Words such as hygiene, disease, mental, drinking, pollution etc. can cause miscommunication in a multicultural discourse. However, communication barriers do not just occur at word levels. Communicative problems associated with speech acts, presupposition, use of metaphors etc. are widespread but not easily recognised. In regards to health, it is important to examine the specific role of culture as a factor in enhancing the effectiveness of communication in a multicultural discourse, particularly in relation to the youth health and well being.