Assessments, interrogatives and semi-scripted talk in managing a restriction on advising

Moore, John

doi:10.1075/pbns.255.02moo

Part of

Producing and Managing Restricted Activities: Avoidance and withholding in institutional interaction
Edited by Fabienne H.G. Chevalier and John Moore
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 255] 2015
► pp. 45–81

Assessments, interrogatives and semi-scripted talk in managing a restriction on advising

John Moore | Olivet College, USA

This chapter examines the ways in which call takers on a mental health information line manage a particular interactional task in a restricted environment. Call takers the line are not allowed to provide advice to callers, and their main remit is to provide information so that callers are empowered to make their own choices on how to act. In the cases discussed below however, the call takers must inform callers that they need to engage in one specific course of action if they wish to access mental health services through the National Health System. The use of assessments, interrogatives, and semi-scripted talk, is shown in the analysis to allow the call takers to deliver this single, specific course of action to callers, while avoiding turns that are hearable as advice or recommendations on how to proceed. This interactional work is achieved through managing the issues of asymmetry and normativity that may otherwise make their talk hearable as advice.

Published online: 27 March 2015

https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.255.02moo

References

Beach, Wayne A

1995 “Preserving and Constraining Options: “Okays” and ‘Official’ Priorities in Medical Interviews”. In Talk of the Clinic, ed. by George H. Morris, and Ronald Chenail, 259–289. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Boyd, Elizabeth, and John Heritage

2006 “Taking the Patient’s Medical History: Questioning During Comprehensive History Taking”. In Communication in Medical Care: Interactions, ed. by John Heritage, and Douglas Maynard, 151–184. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Butler, Carly. W., Jonathan Potter, Susan Danby, Michael Emmison, and Alexa Hepburn

2010 “Advice-implicative Interrogatives: Building “Client-centered” Support in a Children’s Helpline.” Social Psychology Quarterly 73: 265–287.

Drew, Paul, and John Heritage

1992 “Analysing Talk at Work”. In Talk at Work: Interaction in Institutional Settings, ed. by Paul Drew, and John Heritage, 3–65. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Ehrlich, Susan, and Alice Freed

2010 “The Function of Questions in Institutional Discourse: An Introduction.” In “Why Do You Ask?”: The Function of Questions in Institutional Discourse, ed. by Alice Freed, and Susan Ehrlich, 3–19. Oxford: Oxford university press.

Emmison, Michael, and Alan Firth

2012 “Requesting and Receiving Advice on the Telephone: An Analysis of Telephone Telplines in Australia.” In Advice in Discourse, ed. by Holger Limberg, and Miriam A. Locher, 213–232. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.  

Emmison, Michael, Carly W. Butler, and Susan Danby

2011 “Script Proposals: A Device for Empowering Clients in Counselling.” Discourse Studies 13: 3–26.  

Frankel, Richard M

1995 “Some Answers about Questions in Clinical Interviews.” In Talk of the Clinic, ed. by George H. Morris, and Ronald J. Chenail, 233–257. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Goldsmith, Daena, and Erina MacGeorge

2000 “The Impact of Politeness and Relationship on Perceived Quality of Advice about a Problem.” Human Communication Research 26: 234–263.

Heritage, John

2010 “Questioning in Medicine.” In “Why Do You Ask?”: The Function of Questions in Institutional Discourse, ed. by Alice Freed, and Susan Ehrlich, 42–68. Oxford:  Oxford University Press.

Heritage, John, and Anna Lindström

1998 “Motherhood, Medicine and Morality: Scenes from a Medical Encounter.” Research on Language & Social Interaction 31: 397–438.  

Heritage, John, and Marja-Leena Sorjonen

1994 “Constituting and Maintaining Activities Across Sequences: And-Prefacing as a Feature of Question Design.” Language in Society 23: 1–29.

Heritage, John, and Sue Sefi

1992 “Dilemmas of Advice: Aspects of Delivery and Reception of Advice in Interactions between Health Visitors and First-Time Mothers.” In Talk at Work: Interaction in Institutional Settings, ed. by Paul Drew, and John Heritage, 359–417.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Houtkoop-Steenstra, Hanneke, and Charles Antaki

1997 “Creating Happy People by Asking Yes-No Questions.” Research on Language & Social Interaction 30 (4): 285–313.  

Hutchby, Ian

1995 “Aspects of Recipient Design in Expert Advice-Giving on Call-In Radio.” Discourse Processes 19 (2): 219–238.

Jefferson, Gail

2004 “Glossary of Transcript Symbols with an Introduction.” In Conversation Analysis: Studies from the First Generation [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series], ed. by Gene. H. Lerner, 13–31. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Jefferson, Gail, and John R.E. Lee

1981 “The Rejection of Advice: Managing the Problematic Convergence of a ‘Troubles Telling’ and a ‘Service Encounter’.” Journal of Pragmatics 5: 399–422.

Kinnell, Ann Marie, and Douglas Maynard

1996 “The Delivery and Receipt of Safer Sex Advice in Pre-Test Counseling Sessions for HIV and AIDS.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 24: 405–437.

Mishler, Elliot G

1984 The Discourse of Medicine. New Jersey: Ablex.

Moore, John

2010 Talk in Mind: The Analysis of Calls to a Mental Health Information Line. Unpublished PhD thesis. Loughborough University, UK.

2013 “The Use of If / Then Constructions in the Achievement of Information Provision and Client Empowerment.” Sciences de la Société: Special Edition on Organizations & Communication 88: 117–157.

Morrow, Phillip R

2012 “Online Advice in Japanese: Giving Advice in an Internet Discussion Forum.” In Advice in Discourse, ed. by Holger Limberg, and Miriam A. Locher, 255–279. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Pilnick, Alison

1999 ““Patient Counseling” by Pharmacists: Advice, Information, or Instruction?” The Sociological Quarterly 40 (4): 613–622.  

Pomerantz, Anita

1984 Agreeing and Disagreeing with Assessment: Some Features of Preferred/Dispreferred Turn Shapes. In Structures of Social Action: Studies in Conversation Analysis, ed. by J. Maxwell Atkinson, and John Heritage, 57–101. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Pudlinski, Christopher

2002 “Accepting and Rejecting Advice as Competent Peers: Caller Dilemmas on a Warm Line.” Discourse Studies 4 (4): 481–500.  

Raymond, Geoffrey

2003 “Grammar and Social Organization: Yes/No Interrogatives and the Structure of Responding.” American Sociological Review 68: 939–967.  

2006 “Questions at Work: Yes/No Type Interrogatives in Institutional Contexts.” In Talk and Interaction in Social Research Methods, ed. by Paul Drew, Geoffrey Raymond, and Darin Weinberg, 115–134. London: Sage.

2010 “Grammar and Social Relations: Alternative Forms of Yes/No-type Initiating Actions in Health Visitor Interactions.” In “Why Do You Ask?”: The Function of Questions in Institutional Discourse, ed. by Alice Freed, and Susan Ehrlich, 87–107.  Oxford: Oxford university press.

Sacks, Harvey

1992 Lectures on Conversation. Oxford: Blackwell.

Schegloff, Emanuel A

1968 “Sequencing in Conversational Openings.” American Anthropologist 70: 1075–1095.

Schegloff, Emmanuel A

1991 “Reflections on Talk and Social Structure.” In Talk and Social Structure: Studies in Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis, ed. by Don H. Zimmerman, and Deirdre Boden, 44–70. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Schegloff, Emmanuel A., and Gene H. Lerner

2009 “Beginning to Respond: Well-Prefaced Responses to Wh-Questions”. Research on Language & Social Interaction 42 (2): 91–115.  

Schegloff, Emanuel A., and Harvey Sacks

1973 “Opening Up Closings.” Semiotica 8: 289–327.  

Silverman, David

1996 Discourses of Counselling: HIV Counselling as Social Interaction.  London: Sage.

Vehviläinen, Sanna

2001 “Evaluative Advice in Educational Counseling: The Use of Disagreement in the “Stepwise Entry” to Advice.” Research on Language & Social Interaction 34 (3): 371–398.

2012 “Question-Prefaced Advice in Feedback Sequences of Finnish Academic Supervisions.” In Advice in Discourse, ed. by Holger Limberg, and Miriam A.  Locher, 31–51. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Waring, Hansun Z

2005 “Peer Tutoring in a Graduate Writing Centre: Identity, Expertise and Advice Resisting.” Applied Linguistics 26: 141–168.

2007a “Complex Advice Acceptance as a Resource for Managing Asymmetries.” Text & Talk 27 (1): 107–137.

2007b “The Multi-Functionality of Accounts in Advice Giving.” Journal of Sociolinguistics 11 (3): 367–369.

Cited by

Cited by 2 other publications

Monzoni, Chiara M. & Markus Reuber

2015. Linguistic and interactional restrictions in an outpatient clinic. In Producing and Managing Restricted Activities [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 255], ► pp. 239 ff.

Rauniomaa, Mirka, Esko Lehtonen & Heikki Summala

2018. Noticings with instructional implications in post‐licence driver training. International Journal of Applied Linguistics 28:2 ► pp. 326 ff.

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 20 april 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.