Chapter 19
The discursive accomplishment of identity during veterinary medical consultations in the UK
Drawing on extracts from a corpus of 65 video recorded veterinary medical consultations this chapter examines how veterinarians and animal owners identify themselves, one another, and co-present animals. It illustrates how identity is invoked during veterinary medical consultations, and then explores two sites of identity struggle. Firstly, occasions during which veterinarians and animal owners work to identify animals. Secondly, occasions during which veterinarians and animal owners claim rights to report on the animal’s health, prompting struggles over lay-professional boundaries. This chapter draws on, and contributes to, a niche body of literature concerned with the discursive practices used in conjunction with non-human animals. In particular, it addresses discussions about the social construction of identities pertaining to non-human animals.
Article outline
- Introduction
- Theoretical background
- Data and analysis
- Identifying animals
- Identifying patients
- Identity struggle
- Discussion
- Conclusion
-
Note
-
Transcription symbols (adapted from Jefferson 2004)
-
References
References
References
Antaki, Charles, and Susan Widdicombe
(eds) 1998 Identities in Talk. London: Sage.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Arluke, Arnold, and Clinton Sanders
1996 Regarding Animals. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Blackwell, Michael J.
2001 “
Beyond Philosophical Differences: The Future Training of Veterinarians.”
Journal of Veterinary Medical Education 28 (3): 148–52.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Dolins, Francine L.
1999 Attitudes to Animals. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Francione, Gary L.
1995 Animals, Property, and the Law. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Fox, Rebekah
2006 “
Animal behaviours, post-human lives: everyday negotiations of the animal-human divide in pet-keeping.”
Social and Cultural Geography 7 (4): 525–37.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Freidson, Eliot
1970 Professional Dominance: The Social Structure of Medical Care. New Jersey: Transaction Publishers.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
George, Barbara L, Ann C. Kruger, Michael Jeffrey and Andrea Evans
1985 “
The development of gestural communication in young chimpanzees.”
Journal of Human Evolution 14 (2): 175–86.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Goodwin, Charles
1984 “
Notes on story structure and the organisation of participation.” In
Structures of Social Action. ed. by
John M. Atkinson and
John Heritage, 225–247. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Goodwin, Charles
2000a “
Practices of seeing visual analysis: an ethnomethodological approach.” In
Handbook of Visual Analysis. ed. by
Theo Van Leeuwen and
Carey Jewitt, 157–182. London: Sage Publications.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Goodwin, Charles
2000b “
Action and Embodiment within Situated Human Interaction”.
Journal of Pragmatics 32 (10): 1489–1522.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Hearne, Vicki
1982 Adam’s Task: Calling Animals by name. Toronto: Random House.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Heritage, John
2004 “
Conversation Analysis and Institutional Talk.” In
Qualitative Research: Theory, Method and Practice, ed. by
David Silverman. London: Sage.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Heritage, John, and Douglas W., Maynard
(eds) 2006 Communication in medical care: Interaction between primary care physicians and patients. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Heritage, John, and Jeffrey D. Robinson
2006 “
Accounting for the visit: giving reasons for seeking medical care.” In
Communication in Medical Care: Interactions between primary care physicians and patients, ed. by
John Heritage, and
Douglas Maynard, 48–86. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Heritage, John, and Geoffrey Raymond
2005 “
The terms of agreement: Indexing epistemic authority and subordination in talk-in-interaction.”
Social Psychology Quarterly 68 (1): 15–38.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Hutchins, Edwin, and Leysia Palen
1997 “
Constructing Meaning from Space, Gesture and Speech.” In
Discourse, tools, and reasoning: essays on situated cognition, ed. by
Lauren B. Resnick, 23–40. New York: Springer.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Jerolmack, Colin
2005 “
Our Animals, Our Selves? Chipping Away the Animal-Human Divide.”
Sociological Forum 20 (4): 651–60.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Mitchell, Robert W.
2001 “
Americans’ talk to dogs: Similarities and differences with talk to infants.”
Research on Language and Social Interaction 34 (2): 183–210.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Mitchell, Robert W., and Elizabeth Edmonson
1999 “
Functions of repetitive talk to dogs during play: Control, conversation, or planning?”
Society and Animals 7 (1): 55–81.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Morris, Patricia
2012 Blue Juice: Euthanasia in Veterinary Medicine. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Roberts, Felicia
2004 “
Speaking to and for animals in a veterinary clinic: a practice for managing interpersonal interaction.”
Research on Language and Social Interaction. 34 (4): 421–46.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Roth, Wolff-Michael
1994 “
Experimenting in a constructivist high school physic laboratory.”
Journal of Research in Science Teaching. 31 (2): 197–223.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Sacks, Harvey
1992 Lectures on Conversation. Blackwell Publishing: London.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Sanders, Clinton
1993 “
Understanding Dogs: caretakers’ attributions of mindedness in canine-human relationships.”
Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 22 (2): 205–226.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Sanders, Clinton
1994 “
Biting the Hand the Heals You: Encounters with Problematic Patients in a General Veterinary Practice.”
Society and Animals 2 (1): 47–66.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Sanders, Clinton
1995 “
Killing with kindness: veterinary euthanasia and the social construction of personhood.”
Sociological Forum 10 (2): 195–214.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Sanders, Clinton, and Arlie Arluke
1993 “
If Lions Could Speak: Investigating the Animal-Human Relationship and the Perspectives of Non-human Others”
The Sociological Quarterly 34 (3): 377–90.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Shir-Vertesh, Dafna
2012 ““
Flexible Personhood”: Loving Animals as Family Members in Israel.”
American Anthropologist 174 (3): 420–432.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Stivers, Tanya
1998 “
Pre-diagnostic Commentary in Veterinarian-Client Interaction.”
Research on Language and Social Interaction 31 (2): 241–77.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Stivers, Tanya
2002 “’
Symptoms only’ and ‘Candidate diagnoses’: Presenting the problem in paediatric encounters.”
Health Communication 14 (3): 299–338.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Strum, Shirley C.
1987 Almost human: a journey into the world of baboons. New York: Random House.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Tannen, Deborah
2004 “
Talking the Dog: Framing Pets as Interactional Resources in Family Discourse.”
Research on Language and Social Interaction 37 (4): 399–420.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Tannen, Deborah
2010 “
Abduction and identity in family interaction: Ventriloquizing as indirectness.”
Journal of Pragmatics 42 (2): 307–316.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Cited by
Cited by 2 other publications
Hobson‐West, Pru & Annemarie Jutel
2020.
Animals, veterinarians and the sociology of diagnosis.
Sociology of Health & Illness 42:2
► pp. 393 ff.
![DOI logo](//benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
Palmer, Alexandra, Tess Skidmore & Alistair Anderson
2023.
When research animals become pets and pets become research animals: care, death, and animal classification.
Social & Cultural Geography 24:9
► pp. 1519 ff.
![DOI logo](//benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 13 june 2024. 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.