Publications

Publication details [#53052]

Tsai, Mei-Hui. 2010. Managing topics of birth and death in doctor–patient communication. Journal of Pragmatics 42 (5) : 1350–1363.
Publication type
Article in journal
Publication language
English
Language as a subject
Place, Publisher
Elsevier

Annotation

This study discusses how in spontaneous Taiwanese doctor– elderly patient communication, the topics of birth and death of family members are differently addressed. The face-threatening effects linked with death are offset by asking an ambiguous question that provides patients with a broad possibility to volunteer (or not) death-related information.