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Doctors' and interpreters' conversational styles in paediatric diabetes encounters : A case study of empowering language use

På svenska

Author

Summary, in English

During the last few decades, ideas of empowerment, person-centred care (PCC) and shared decision-making (SDM) have informed western health care. An increasing interest in conversational styles aligned with these ideas is visible e.g. in the work to make motivational interviewing (MI) an evidence-based communicative practice. But linguistic competence is needed to identify the subtle nuances of the communicative practices in a doctor-patient consultation. It is therefore particularly important to investigate conversation styles in mediated encounters with immigrant patients. Mitigation strategies (indirect speech, hedging etc.) and confirming strategies (back-channelling, encouragement etc.) are considered to be typical of an 'empowering' conversation style. The distribution of these features in encounters with or without interpreters was analysed in a case study of two consultations with the same doctor in a children's diabetes clinic in Sweden. The results of this study indicate that the mitigation strategies and confirming strategies characteristic of a conversation style aimed at strengthening and encouraging the patient tend to get lost in mediation. The implications of these findings are discussed.

Department/s

Publishing year

2016

Language

English

Pages

155-167

Publication/Series

Communication & Medicine. An Interdisciplinary Journal of Healthcare, Ethics and Society

Volume

13

Issue

2

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Equinox Publishing

Topic

  • Nursing
  • General Language Studies and Linguistics

Keywords

  • Conversation style
  • Empowering strategies
  • Interpreter
  • L2 speakers
  • Paediatric diabetes
  • Person-centred care
  • Politeness

Status

Published

Project

  • Communicative strategies in diabetes care in when doctors meet immigrant families

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1613-3625