Chapter published in:
Technology Mediated Service Encounters
Edited by Pilar Garcés-Conejos Blitvich, Lucía Fernández-Amaya and María de la O Hernández-López
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 300] 2019
► pp. 17–44

Chapter 1
Language discordance and technological facilitation in health care service encounters

A contrastive experiment

This chapter reports on the design and implementation of a multilingual, mobile app to facilitate the communication in language discordant face-to-face service encounters (SEs). It describes the results of a two-group between-subjects experiment, in which respondents (N = 20) were randomly assigned to either a SE with app (N = 11), or a SE without app (N = 9). The research builds on the hypothesis that technological mediation facilitates the transfer of information. To verify this hypothesis, it relies on qualitative and quantitative research data: (i) SERVQUAL satisfaction questionnaires and (ii) interaction analysis of video-recorded SEs. The findings address concerns of lengthened visit time, reduced eye contact and additional training needs. The chapter closes with brief guidelines for unlocking the potential of mHealth in language discordant SEs.

Keywords: mHealth, TMC (technology-mediated communication), TFC (technology-facilitated communication), service encounter, service quality, SERVQUAL, two-group between-subjects experiment, mixed method, multilingualism
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Situating the case
  • 3.Data collection and method
    • 3.1A qualitative perspective
    • 3.2Experimental approach
      • 3.2.1Satisfaction questionnaires
      • 3.2.2Interactional analysis of video-recorded SEs
  • 4.Results and discussion
    • 4.1Satisfaction questionnaires
    • 4.2Interactional analysis
      • 4.2.1Does technological facilitation impact on conversational sequencing? (RQ3)
      • 4.2.2Does technological mediation impact on eye gaze? (RQ4)
      • 4.2.3Does technological facilitation enhance communicative understanding? (RQ5)
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 10 January 2019
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.300.01dew
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