A functional analysis of theme and thematic progression of private hospital websites
Medical tourism has been seriously affected by coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) that has become a huge threat to global economy. In mitigating this issue, attention needs to be given to the online promotional message strategy to boost medical tourism. However, there is a scarcity of work on med...
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| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
2021
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| Online Access: | http://journalarticle.ukm.my/18037/1/42845-167706-1-PB.pdf http://journalarticle.ukm.my/18037/ https://ejournal.ukm.my/3l/issue/view/1423 |
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| Summary: | Medical tourism has been seriously affected by coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) that has become a huge
threat to global economy. In mitigating this issue, attention needs to be given to the online promotional message
strategy to boost medical tourism. However, there is a scarcity of work on medical tourism promotional discourse
from the textual function perspective despite the considerable number of studies in other types of discourse. This
study, therefore, aims to examine and compare the promotional discourse message strategies in Malaysia and
Thailand’s private hospital websites. The analysis was based on Systemic Functional Linguistic (SFL)
perspective, using Halliday & Matthiessen’s model of textual analysis (2004) and Daneš’ classification of
thematic patterns (1974). A total of six webpages with three webpages of one Malaysian website and one Thai
website were analysed in relation to theme type and thematic progression. The findings show that texts derived
from the hospital websites in Malaysia and Thailand display similarities and differences pertaining to how the
texts are organised in relation to their theme types and thematic patterns. Both websites from Malaysia and
Thailand combined objectivity with subjectivity in choosing their themes and thematic progression since they have
a preference for unmarked themes in combination with marked theme to inform and persuade readers. However,
the Prince Court Medical Centre (PCMC, Malaysia) website was direct and cohesive with its short texts and use
of textual themes, while the message in Samitivej Hospital (SH, Thailand) website was more indirect, less compact,
and less cohesive as the texts were rather lengthy and interspersed with interpersonal themes. The findings can
be a guide for copywriters, website designers or medical tourism stakeholders to be aware of meaning-making
strategies in promoting medical websites for medical tourism purpose. |
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