Cover not available

In:Discourses of Helping Professions:
Edited by Eva-Maria Graf, Marlene Sator and Thomas Spranz-Fogasy
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 252] 2014
► pp. 205–226

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload Book PDF
authorization required

Anticipatory reactions

Patients’ answers to doctors’ questions

Published online: 18 December 2014
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.252.09spr
This article examines patients’ answers to doctors’ questions during history taking as a central activity format which reveal a deeper understanding of each other. An analysis of medical interactions shows that patients mostly expand the topical, structural and/or pragmatic scope of their questions. The sequential positioning of answers provides more possibilities than is to be seen from a strict perspective of question types. Patients’ answers reflect their understanding of the current interaction type, and of the question’s implications, doctors’ relevancies as patients assume them, or even the doctors’ presupposed next question; a phenomenon we call anticipatory reaction. Both action formats and their interplay point to two important principles of interaction: the principle of cooperation and the principle of progressivity within the frame of the particular interaction type.
References (29)
References
Barth-Weingarten, Dagmar. 2011. “Double Sayings of German JA – More Observations on their Phonetic Form and Alignment Function.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 44 (2): 157–185. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bilmes, Jack. 1988. “The Concept of Preference in Conversation Analysis.” Language in Society 17 (2): 161–181. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Boyd, Elizabeth, and John Heritage. 2006. “Taking the Patient’s Medical History: Questioning during Comprehensive History Taking.” In Communication in Medical Care: Interactions between Primary Care Physicians and Patients, ed. by John Heritage, and Douglas W.
 Maynard, 151–184. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Deppermann, Arnulf. 2008. “Verstehen im Gespräch [Understanding in Conversation].” In Sprache – Kognition – Kultur. Sprache zwischen mentaler Struktur und kultureller Prägung, ed. by Heidrun Kämper, and Ludwig M. Eichinger, 225–261. Berlin, New York: De Gruyter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Deppermann, Arnulf, and Reinhold Schmitt. 2009. “Verstehensdokumentationen: Zur Phänomenologie von Verstehen in der Interaktion [Understanding displays: On the Phenomenology of Understanding in Interaction].” Deutsche Sprache 36 (3): 220–245.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Deppermann, Arnulf, and Thomas Spranz-Fogasy. 2011. “Doctors’ Questions as Displays of Understanding.” Communication & Medicine 8 (2): 111–124.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gill, Virginia T., Anita Pomerantz, and Paul Denvir. 2009. “Pre-Emptive Resistance: Patients’ Participation in Diagnostic Sense-Making Activities.” Sociology of Health & Illness 32 (1): 1–20. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goodwin, Marjorie H., and Charles Goodwin. 1986. “Gesture and Coparticipation in the Activity of Searching for a Word.” Semiotica 62 (1–2): 51–75. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Grice, H. Paul. 1975. “Logic and Conversation.” In Syntax and semantics 3, ed. by Peter Cole, and Jerry Morgan, 41–58. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Heritage, John. 2007. “Intersubjectivity and Progressivity in References to Persons (and Places).” In Person Reference in Interaction: Linguistic, Cultural and Social Perspectives, ed. by Tanya Stivers, and Nick J. Enfield, 255–280. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Heritage, John, and Steven Clayman. 2010. Talk in Action: Interactions, Identities, and Institutions. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Heritage, John, and Douglas Maynard (eds). 2006. Communication in Medical Care: Interaction between Primary Care Physicians and Patients. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Heritage, John, Jeffrey Robinson, Marc Elliott, Megan Beckett, and Michael Wilkes. 2007. “Reducing Patients’ Unmet Concerns in Primary Care: The Difference One Word Can Make.” Journal of General Internal Medicine 22 (10): 1429–1433. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jefferson, Gail. 1981. “The abominable ’ne?’ An Exploration of Post-Response Pursuit of Response.” In Dialogforschung, ed. by Peter Schröder, 53–88. Düsseldorf: Schwann.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Manning, Philip, and George Ray. 2002. “Setting the Agenda: An Analysis of Negotiation Strategies in Clinical Talk.” Health Communication 14 (4): 451–473. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pomerantz, Anita. 1984. “Agreeing and Disagreeing with Assessments: Some Features of Preferred/Dispreferred Turn Shapes.” In Structures of Social Action. Studies in Conversation Analysis, ed. by Maxwell J. Atkinson, and John Heritage, 57–101. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1986. “Extreme Case Formulations: A Way of Legitimizing Claims.” Human Studies 9 (2–3): 219–230. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Raymond, Geoffrey. 2003. “Grammar and Social Organization: Yes/No Interrogatives and the Structure of Responding.” American Sociological Review 68 (6): 939–967. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sator, Marlene. 2003. Zum Umgang mit Relevanzmarkierungen im ÄrztInnen-PatientInnen-Gespräch. Eine konversationsanalytische Fallstudie eines Erstgesprächs auf der onkologischen Ambulanz [Dealing with markers of relevance in doctor-patient communication. A conversation analytic cases study of a first medical consultation in an oncological ambulance]. Diplom-Arbeit. Universität Wien.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2011. Schmerzdifferenzierung – Eine gesprächsanalytische Untersuchung ärztlicher Erstgespräche an der Kopfschmerzambulanz [Pain differentiation. A conversation analytic analysis of first medical consultations in the ambulance for headache]. Wien: v&r, Vienna University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schegloff, Emanuel. 1979. “The Relevance of Repair for Syntax-for-Conversation.” In Syntax and Semantics 12: Discourse and Syntax, ed. by Talmy Givón, 261–286. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1992. “Repair after Next Turn: The Last Structurally Provided Defense of Intersubjectivity in Conversation.” American Journal of Sociology 97 (5): 1295–1345. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1997. “Third Turn Repair.” In Towards a Social Science of Language 2, ed. by Gregory R. Guy, Crawford Feagin, Deborah Schiffrin, and John Baugh, 31–41. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2007. Sequence Organization in Interaction. A Primer in Conversation Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schöffler, Marta, and Thomas Spranz-Fogasy. 2012. “ja m_hm. Patientenreaktionen auf prädiagnostische Mitteilungen [yes u_hm. Patients’ reactions to anticipatory reactions].” Zeitschrift für Angewandte Linguistik 57 (1): 1–32. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Selting, Margret, et al. 2011. “A System for Transcribing Talk-in-Interaction: GAT 2.” Translated by Elisabeth Couper-Kuhlen, and Dagmar Barth-Weingarten. Gesprächsforschung 12: 1–51. Accessed November 22, 2012, [URL].Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Spranz-Fogasy, Thomas. 2010. “Verstehensdokumentation in der medizinischen Kommunikation: Fragen und Antworten im Arzt-Patient-Gespräch [Understanding displays in medical communication: Questions and answers in doctor-patient communication].” In Verstehen in Professionellen Handlungsfeldern, ed. by Arnulf Deppermann, Ulrich Reitemeier, Reinhold Schmitt, and Thomas Spranz-Fogasy, 27–116. Tübingen: Narr.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stivers, Tanya, and John Heritage. 2001. “Breaking the Sequential Mold: Answering ‘More than the Question’ during Comprehensive History Taking.” Text 21 (1): 151–185.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stivers, Tanya, and Jeffrey Robinson. 2006. “A Preference for Progressivity in Interaction.” Language in Society 35 (3): 367–392. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

Jautz, Sabine
2018. In the Wind of Change: Wie Veränderungen im Coaching angestoßen werden können. Coaching | Theorie & Praxis 4:1 ► pp. 33 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 28 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue