International journal
ISSN 2311-0759 (Online)
ISSN 2311-0740 (Print)


pain

Symptom and/or complaint: semiotic aspect

This article considers the explication of the notions «complaint speech genre» and «symptom» in medical discourse. Communicative system of medical discourse is defined as a combined-type system due to the interaction of nozological and clinical paradigms. In the aspect of a semiotic approach a symptom is treated as a sign means that shows characteristics of three major types of a sign in their relative hierarchy.