SOMATIZATION, SOCIAL SUPPORT, AND SEMANTICS IN CHINATOWN

这个项目是一种人类学的方法来(1)研究人的角色 在躯体化的动力和过程中缺乏社会支持 纽约唐人街的新中国移民，随之而来的目标 建议提供新的社会来源的文化适应方式 支持，以及(2)中医疾病术语和其他研究 用于交互的通信网络的组件 悲伤的表达，这种手段在西方模式中的翻译 为了准确地诊断躯体化是否存在问题，以及，在 一般情况下，帮助受过西方培训的卫生专业人员了解 与他们的中国病人交流。 定性的方法被用在文化和语言上。 中国人如何管理影响，如何应对的情景 压力、他们的家庭和社会关系、社区及其支持 系统，以及用于交流的中文概念术语 在所有这些情况下的疾病和治愈。 活动包括深入的民族志调查，参与者 在非正式家访中进行观察和访谈。该示例包括 随机抽取的家庭，社会和医疗机构的工作人员， 教堂和寺庙，以及社区领袖。样本的一部分包括 被确认为躯体激进者的关键受访者及其成员 家人。将制定和管理调查问卷，以调查 疾病及其词汇的文化和个人意义 情感语义学、内涵语义学和外延语义学。 虽然这项研究是严格的定性的，但总体目标是 找出文化上有意义的变量，这些变量将建立 这个项目以外的定量研究的可靠性。

This project is an anthropological approach to (1) the study of the role of lack of social support in the dynamics and processes of somatization among the new Chinese immigrants in New York's Chinatown, with a consequent goal of suggesting ways of acculturation that provide new sources of social support, and (2) the study of Chinese illness terminology and other components of their communicational network used for the interactional expression of distress, the translation of such means into Western models for accurately diagnosing whether somatization is at issue, and, in general, ways of helping Western-trained health professionals understand communication with their Chinese patients. A qualitative method is applied to the cultural and linguistic contextualization of how the Chinese manage affect, how they cope with stress, their family and social relations, the community and its supportive systems, and the Chinese conceptual terminology for communicating about illness and healing in all these contexts. Activities include indepth ethnographic investigation, participant observation, and interviewing in informal home visits. The sample includes families selected at random, the personnel of social and medical agencies, churches and temples, and community leaders. Part of the sample consists of key respondents identified as somatizers and the members of their families. Questionnaires will be formulated and administered probing the cultural and personal meanings of illness and its vocabulary from the perspectives of affective, connotative, and denotative semantics. Although the research is strictly qualitative, an overall goal is to identify the culturally significant variables that will establish the reliability of quantitative research beyond this project.