This study examines the activity of requesting help in
emergency calls, using 911 Costa Rica as a case study. Focusing on the
notions of contingency-entitlement, benefactors and beneficiaries, and the
urgency of the incident, the findings show that the design of the request
for non-life-threatening incidents can encode the caller’s low entitlement
to the request via the phrase para ver si ‘to see if.’ When
using this phrase in conjunction with other linguistic forms (such as modal
periphrasis), the caller’s entitlement to the request is further downgraded.
Regardless of the type of incident and the linguistic forms used in the
request for help, call-takers’ next relevant action is asking the location
of the incident or verifying the caller’s information.
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and
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Penverne, Y., H. Delelis-Fanien, L. Robert, F. Berthier, J. Jenvrin & E. Montassier
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