Claire Haiber

Professor Gardiakos

Enc 1102

19 September 2022

Genre Analysis & Intertextuality

Healthcare is a universal right that everyone should be entitled to. Everyone should have

equal access and understanding of the medical care system in which they reside, which is why

health literacy is so important. The United States' Health Care system is quite unique from other

countries, it primarily relies on health insurance. To International students, this could be a very

different layout than what they are used to, making it a hard concept to grasp. It is imperative

that International Student are adequately taught this health care system, so they have the

necessary information to make well-informed health care decisions.

An article that analyzes the effectiveness of communication surrounding health care to

international students is Healthcare Communication as a Social Justice Issue: Strategies for

Technical Communicators to Intervene by Akshata J. Balghare. In this writing, Balghare

analyzes Internation student's orientation centering health care and whether this is effective

communication to obtain an adequate level of health literacy. Incoming students in general are in

a very vulnerable place, when it comes to these kinds of topics. They are just breaching the fine

line between adulthood and youth, and this independence can be quite overwhelming to some.

However, the University staff/faculty can help guide these students by supplying them with the

information and guidance they need to make their own decisions. This makes a discourse
community of University staff/ faculty, and the genre of this community is a research article.

However, some members of this community are put in different circumstances than the majority

of students. As unguarded and scary as emerging adulthood can feel, being in a completely new

country with an entire new culture and set of rules can be even more isolating. Not to mention

international students where English is not their first language or are no fluent in English. This

can make it hard for International students to grasp the complexity of the U.S. health care system

in the short 30-minute Health care orientation that most of these students are given.

Due to Balghare’s article having a relatively general audience, she uses formal yet

straightforward language to illustrate her points. For example, Balghare states “This

unfamiliarity can cause international students to utilize health services less efficiently than

domestic students because that requires them to navigate through insurance, medical history

forms, understanding care costs, etc.”. As most language in a research paper, this language is

formal, however due to the discourse community and audience of this text being general the

language is easy to interpret and straight forward. If this was a more specialized discourse

community the language would be a lot more technical and specific to the field, this is not the

case here. However, this use of language has a double ended purpose. One of Balghare’s

solutions to this subpar health care communication is a Rhetorical one. She suggests using “plain

language” to help illustrate this complex topic to non-native English speakers. She explains that

using simpler language would not only be easier to understand, but also minimize the “cognitive

load” that these students would need to process.

Research articles as a genre can be lackluster when it comes to engaging the audience.

They contain a lot of information and technical words that can be difficult to maintain focus for

the entirety of the article. To combat this, many authors will use different rhetorical devices to
draw a reader in and sustain their attention. This can impact how a genre is organized. Balghare

is no exception to this. She begins the article by adding a personal anecdote. This establishes a

familial connection with the audience and the author, establishes credibility on the topic, and

introduces the article in an engaging way. Balgha introduces her writing with sharing her

experience with medical care as an international student in the United States. Balghare expressed

the difficulty she faced navigating the turbulent waters of health care system which only resulted

in delaying her treatment, worsening her condition (Balghare). This makes the issues discussed

in the article all the more personal. By establishing a mental image of the struggle that these

students face, this appeals to the reader’s emotion utilizing pathos. Although research articles

can, for lack of a better word, “boring” and lengthy, they play a pivotal role in the university

discourse community. In an Academia environment, academic papers are all the more vital.

These articles are often packed with a plethora of evidence to back up their reasoning; providing

viable new information, studies, and research on any niche topic.

For a research article to appeal to logic and reasoning, it needs evidence to support these

claims. This “evidence” typically comes from other research articles and credible sources. The

use of other texts and media within a given genre is known as intertextuality. In Balghare’s

article, intertextuality is most definitely at play. Balghare references and cites a plethora of other

texts within her article. One notable source she cites is a study conducted by Heather Carmack.

In this study, Carmack asks a series of questions revolving around the US healthcare system to a

variety of international students. The important messages resulting from this study include

students not knowing what was covered by insurance, what health issues required professional

help (as in some countries it is normalized to go to hospital after every minor cold), and how to

go about getting test/ how to pay for them (such as required Tuberculosis test). Balghare
included specifically that within this study, students vocalized that Universities did no

adequately explain what was covered by insurance. She also went further in depth that they were

not explicit in the fact that students were still charged with insurance even if they did not utilize

it. Balghare included this because this supported her argument that Universities do not provide

enough information for incoming international students to navigate this health care system. This

point is especially poignant given that this information was relayed from many International

students. This adds substance to Balghare’s argument, showcasing that if this many students

from other countries were feeling confused by this system, there is a problem with the

communication of this vital information.

Another notable source that strengthened Balghare’s argument was a study conducted by

Hsin Cheng in Being Ill in A Foreign Land: International Students’ Perceptions of and

Experiences with University Health Services.