Xiaojiang Wang
This study attempts to investigate the forms and functions of overinformative responses employed by Chinese e-patients in online medical consultations with qualitative analysis. Based on Internet-elicited dataset collected from chunyuyisheng.com, it is found that e-pa-tients’ overinformative responses can be formally categorized into mono-propositional and multi-propositional categories. Functionally, overinformative responses can be primarily employed by the patients for the purposes of grounding, expanding, and disarming in the context of OMCs. The current study will not only contribute to our further understanding of doctor-patient discourse, but also shed new light on the identification and interpretation of e-patients’ pressing request for diagnosis.