Article published In: Writing in interaction
Edited by Lorenza Mondada
[Language and Dialogue 6:1] 2016
► pp. 54–80
Street-level bureaucracy revisited
Formulating address in social work service encounters
Published online: 19 May 2016
https://doi.org/10.1075/ld.6.1.02mon
https://doi.org/10.1075/ld.6.1.02mon
In social work practice, keeping records of encounters with clients is a routinized practice for documenting cases. This paper focuses on the specific task of obtaining the prospective clients’ correct address for filling in a standardized personal report form. My analysis focuses in the way both the client(s) and the social worker cooperatively orient to the practice of writing addresses, showing how this apparently simple task is multimodally implemented within interaction, and how it can generate some complications and expansions. A special focus will be devoted to difficulties encountered by clients to give their address in an adequate way, as well as to the transformation of this activity from an individual to a collective task.
Keywords: multimodality, address, standardized forms, social interaction, writing
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