While most patients complain they fail to understand doctor's use of jargon, young doctors feel frustrated when they do not know how to ask questions or provide explanations in the patients' mother tongue. The difference between professional terms and lay expressions lies not only on the linguistic precision and concision, but also the different functions each achieves. The former serves to establish medical knowledge and the latter the exchange of health information. Grounded in the idea of "diglossia" in sociolinguistics (i.e., the distribution of high and low codes in different interactional contexts), the author suggests two discourse strategies in expressing health information to patients. In gathering health problems from patients, the use of medical jargon (i. e., high codes) is not recommended. Instead, it is suggested that doctors first separate the complicated ideas involved in a medical term into small units and then paraphrase each with common expressions (i.e., low codes). In providing a diagnosis for the patient, the introduction of professional jargon increases patient's medical knowledge which, however, can only be achieved if an explanation in common expression is provided first.
很都人埋怨聽不僅醫師的術語、年輕醫師也常遇到不知如何以病人的母語詢問或說明病情。專業術語與常民用語之所以有別，除了可從語言結構的精準度與精簡度區別，其功能也有所差異：前者建立醫學知識、後者傳遞病情訊息。本文從社會語言學的語體正式度與高低階辭彙分工之角度，介紹病情資訊傳遞之二個言談技巧：收集病情資訊時以低階（常民用語）詮釋高階（醫學辭彙），提供病情資訊時以高低互補建立醫學知識。透過生活化辭彙將精密辭彙拆解並增加前後文，可幫助醫師表達專業概念，有了基本的理解後，再引介專業辭彙，增加病人的醫學知識。
