Healing Strategies in Chinese Folk Narratives and the Cross-cultural Adaptation of Charon Theory
Yao Lan
Yuan Xi
Abstract：This paper explores the dialogue and tension between Chinese folk disease narratives and Rita Charon's narrative medical theory from a cross-cultural comparative perspective.The Charon theory emphasizes the role of language narrative in constructing the meaning of diseases,but there are significant differences between its Western individualistic assumptions and the collectivist logic of Chinese folk narratives.Chinese folk narratives transform disease experiences into cultural symbol systems through nonverbal rituals and hidden ethical grammar,achieving the restoration of ethical order and the maintenance of community identity.The healing strategy of Chinese folk narrative not only supplements the intersubjective framework of Charon's theory,but also provides a localized medical humanities practice paradigm—through the reproduction of cultural symbols and the adjustment of ethical relationships,it achieves localized interpretation of disease meaning and resonance with life experience.
Keywords：Chinese folk narrativeRita Charon theoryCross-culturalMedical humanities
Publication Date：2025-07-20
Online Publishing Date：2025-08-15(First online date of this platform, not the publication date of the document)
Pages：6( 51-55,60 )