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
Keywords
Language as a subject
Place, Publisher
Elsevier
Journal WWW
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.