'Doctors Killed My Baby': Argumentative Patterns in Medical Disputes in China

摘要

The recent surge in medical disputes requires that more attention be paid to the voices of laypeople. This article explores the argumentative nature of the public discourse of the reported “malpractice mobs” that strive to convince members of the public (in the place of health or legal experts) that they have been victims of medical errors and injustice. This case-based qualitative empirical study uses a pragma-dialectical approach to suggest a prototypical pattern of such public appeals that contains a basic argumentative pattern and various types of extensions.