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Article published In: Pragmatics and Society
Vol. 11:1 (2020) ► pp.45–69

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Extraordinary emergencies

Reproducing moral discourses of the child in institutional interaction

 | University of the Witwatersrand
 | University of the Witwatersrand | University of California, Santa Barbara
Published online: 30 March 2020
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https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.17001.raf
Abstract
This report uses audio recorded telephone calls and textual data from an emergency medical services call center to examine the interactional practices through which speakers produce what we call “extraordinary emergencies”, treating the events concerned as requiring moral, as well as medical, attention. Since one of the overarching institutional aims of emergency call centers is to facilitate the efficient provision of medical services, call-takers typically treat reported emergencies as routine events. However, in some instances speakers produce practices that do not contribute toward the institutional agenda of providing medical assistance, thereby treating them as extraordinary cases. These practices occurred recurrently in calls involving reports of emergencies relating to child sexuality, including sexual assaults against children and obstetric emergencies where the mother was particularly young. We discuss the implications of these findings for the situated reproduction of particular moral norms, especially with respect to the category of the child in society.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Emergency medical call centers and the routinization of disaster
  • 3.Childhood and sexuality in modern society
  • 4.Data and method
  • 5.Analysis
  • 6.Discussion and conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
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Cited by (3)

Cited by three other publications

Rafaely, Daniella
2024. Self-categorization: a resource for the management of experiential entitlement in talk about child death. Text & Talk 44:2 ► pp. 249 ff. DOI logo
Tennent, Emma & Ann Weatherall
2024. Person Reference and a Preference for Association in Emergency Calls. Research on Language and Social Interaction 57:2 ► pp. 235 ff. DOI logo
Fele, Giolo
2023. Introduction. In Emergency Communication, ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo

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