Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-94fs2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T04:04:48.027Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Medical professionals and parents: A linguistic analysis of communication across contexts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2008

Deborah Tannen  and
Cynthia Wallat
Deborah Tannen
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics, Georgetown University
Cynthia Wallat
Affiliation:
Department of Reading and Special Education, Florida State University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The study is based on analysis of videotaped conversation that occurred in five different settings involving various family members and medical professionals in a single pediatric case. We examine (1) the elaboration and condensation of information through spoken and written channels; (2) the negotiation of information exchanged in interactions characterized by different participant structures; and (3) the methodological benefit of examining interaction across contexts. We find that (a) information is negotiated, as well as discovered, during the medical interviews; and (b) information exchanged is often less resilient than participants' cognitive schemas which precede and apparently outlive the exchange of information in the interaction. These findings contribute to an understanding of the negotiation of meaning as well as the creation of context in interaction. (Discourse, interactional sociolinguistics, context, doctor–patient communication, spoken and written language, schema theory)

Type
Articles
Information
Language in Society , Volume 15 , Issue 3 , September 1986 , pp. 295 - 311
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1986

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Candlin, C. N., Bruton, C. J., & Leather, J. H. (1974). Doctor-patient communication skills. Working Papers 1–4. Lancaster: University of Lancaster Institute for English Language Education.Google Scholar
Cicourel, A. (1975). Discourse and text: Cognitive and linguistic processes in studies of social structure. Versus 12:33–84.Google Scholar
Coulthard, M. & Ashby, M. (1975). Talking with the doctor. Journal of Communication 25:3:140–47.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Danziger, S. K. (1980). The medical model in doctor-patient interaction: The case of pregnancy care. In Roth, J. A. (ed.), Research in the sociology of health care: A research annual. Greenwich: Jai. 263–304.Google Scholar
Fisher, S. & Todd, A. D. (eds.) (1983). The social organization of doctor-patient communication. Washington, D.C.: Center for Applied Linguistics.Google Scholar
Ford, J. C. (1978). Doctor-patient communication. Paper presented at the Fifth International Congress of Applied Linguistics.Montreal.Google Scholar
Frankel, R. (1983). Microanalysis and the medical encounter. In Helms, W., Anderson, T., & Meehan, A. J. (eds.), New directions in ethnomethodology and conversational analysis. New York: Irvington.Google Scholar
Frankel, R. (1984). From sentence to sequence: Understanding the medical encounter through microinteractional analysis. Discourse Processes 7(2): 135–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frankel, R. (in press). Talking in interviews: A dispreference in patient initiated questions in physician-patient encounters. In Psathas, G., Coulter, J., & Frankel, R. (eds.), Interactional competence. Norwood, N.J.: Ablex.Google Scholar
Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. New York: Doubleday.Google Scholar
Goffman, E. (1981). Footing. In Forms of talk. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 124–59.Google Scholar
Gumperz, J. J. (1982). Discourse strategies. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harwood, A. (n.d.). Communicating about disease: Clinical implications of divergent concepts among patients and physicians. Boston: University of Massachusetts.Google Scholar
Heath, S. B. (1979). The context of professional languages: An historical overview. In Alatis, J. E. & Tucker, G. R. (eds.), Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics 1979. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press. 102–18.Google Scholar
Keniston, K. (1977). All our children: The American family under pressure. New York: Harcourt Brace.Google Scholar
Kleinman, A. (1980). Patients and healers in the context of culture. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maurin, J. (1980). Negotiating an innovative health care service. In Roth, J. A. (ed.), Research in the sociology of health care: A research annual. Greenwich: Jai.Google Scholar
Philips, S. U. (1972). Participant structures and communicative competence: Warm Springs children in community and classroom. In Cazden, C., John, V., & Hymes, D. (eds.), Functions of language in the classroom. New York: Teachers College Press. 370–94.Google Scholar
Reddy, M. (1979). The conduit metaphor: A case of frame conflict in our language about language. In Ortony, A. (ed.), Metaphor and thought. Cambridge University Press. 284–324.Google Scholar
Roth, J. A. (1980). Introduction. Research in the sociology of health care: A research annual. Greenwich: Jai. ix–xv.Google Scholar
Schneider, J. W. & Conrad, P. (1980). The medical control of deviance: Contests and consequences. In Roth, J. A. (ed.), Research in the sociology of health care: A research annual. Greenwich: Jai. 1–55.Google Scholar
Shuy, R. W. (1983). Three types of interference to an effective exchange of information in the medical interview. In S. Fisher & A. D. Todd (1983). 189–202.Google Scholar
Tannen, D. (1979). What's in a frame? Surface evidence for underlying expectations. In Freedle, R. (ed.). New dimensions in discourse processes. Norwood, N.J.: Ablex. 137–81.Google Scholar
Tannen, D. (1985). Frames and schemas in interaction. Quaderni di Semantica 7 (2):326–35.Google Scholar
Tannen, D. & Wallat, C. (1982). A sociolinguistic analysis of multiple demands on the pediatrician in doctor/mother/patient interaction. In DiPietro, R. (ed.), Linguistics and the professions. Norwood, N.J.: Ablex. 39–50.Google Scholar
Tannen, D. & Wallat, C. (1983). Doctor/mother/child communication: Linguistic analysis of a pediatric interaction. In S. Fisher & A. D. Todd (1983). 203–20.Google Scholar
Tannen, D. & Wallat, C. (in press). The dilemma of parent participation in medical settings: A linguistic analysis. In Frankel, R. M. (ed,), Language at work: Studies in situated interaction. Norwood, N.J.: Ablex.Google Scholar
United States Department of Health and Human Services (1980a). Better health for our children: A national strategy. The report of the select panel for the promotion of child health to the United States Congress. Vol. 3. A statistical profile. Washington, D.C.: Public Health Service.Google Scholar
United States Department of Health and Human Services (1980b). Health United States 1980. Washington, D.C.: Public Health Service. Office of Health Research, Statistics, and Technology.Google Scholar
United States Department of Health and Human Services (1981). Current estimates from the National Health Interview Survey. Washington, D.C.: Public Health Service. National Center for Health Statistics.Google Scholar
West, C. (1984). Medical misfires: Mishearings, misgivings, and misunderstandings in physicianpatient dialogue. Discourse Processes 7 (2): 107–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yedidia, M. (1980). The lay-professional division of health care delivery. In Roth, J. A. (ed.), Research in the sociology of health care: A research annual. Greenwich: Jai. 355–77.Google Scholar