ADVERBIAL REPRESENTATION IN MEDICAL TEXTS: A CORPUS-BASED ANALYSIS

Abstract

In the field of medical communication, the accurate transmission of information is not only essential for effective treatment but also vital for patient safety and professional credibility. While previous research has extensively examined medical terminology, nominal structures, and syntactic complexity, comparatively little attention has been devoted to adverbials – linguistic units that modify verbs, adjectives, or entire clauses. Despite their secondary grammatical status, adverbials serve a range of pragmatic functions, including indicating time, manner, degree, and stance. They can frame statements as tentative, emphasize certainty, or provide contextual cues that guide interpretation. Medical texts – ranging from peer-reviewed journal articles to patient-oriented informational materials – rely on varying types of adverbial constructions to structure arguments, signal evidential status, and mediate between clinical detachment and human empathy. As such, adverbials play a critical yet often overlooked role in shaping the tone, clarity, and epistemic stance of medical discourse. The aim of this study is to examine how adverbials are employed in written medical texts and to propose a classification framework based on their syntactic form and communicative function. Using a corpus-based approach, the analysis seeks to uncover patterns of usage that characterize the adverbial profile of medical writing, and to contribute to a more nuanced understanding of its stylistic and rhetorical conventions.