Disseminating knowledge of Mental Health care: a diachronic analysis of the language of the UK Code(s) of practice

This study is based on the assumption that knowledge dissemination is a particular form of intralinguistic translation from a specialized language targeted at a professional audience to a comprehensible language accessible to the average citizen (see Hilgartner 1990). The aim is to investigate the language of the Code of practice (1999, 2005, 2008) relating to the Mental Health Act (1983, 2007) (http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/pls/portallive/docs/1/51771696.PDF) to identify and analyse the discursive constructions and changes in the light of studies on knowledge dissemination. Comprehensibility and simplification have been investigated in terms of re-contextualizing knowledge. Ideological implications have also been explored, taking into accounts the genre, the purpose and the target audience of both the Acts and the Code(s) of practice as they “[…] form the basis of the social representations and practices of group members, including their discourse, which at the same time serves as the means of ideological production, reproduction and challenge” (van Dijk 2004: 116-140). Besides, ‘role’ (Sarangi 2011) has been investigated as a result of a new paradigm with a focus on the patient as an individual. Plain language theories have been referred to in order to investigate the role of language in the drafting of legal documents with reference to the new communicative needs in the global era (Williams 2007). The analysis has revealed a strategic use of: modals - can, will and must - and lexical items; discourse strategies: a mix of formal and technical vs. informal and simplified register; Role: shifts in the Patient’s role, which reflect a shift in KD of MH discourse towards NBM (narrative based medicine).