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KMID : 1164420140090010023
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Health Communication
2014 Volume.9 No. 1 p.23 ~ p.37
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Conversational Functions of Doctors’ Reflecting Utterances During Medical Interviews
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Park Song-Chol
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Abstract
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Purpose: This study aims to analyze the conversational functions of reflecting utterances of doctors during medical interviews.
Methods: The data consists of doctor-patient conversations during 50 medical interviews which were recorded and transcribed. Each reflecting utterance of the doctors was assigned to an informational function according to its contribution in gathering important information. The empathic aspect was also taken into account.
Results: As for the information dimension, 8 information accommodating functions were revealed: reflecting utterances were commonly a request for confirmation of some relevant information through selecting, supplementing, summarizing, disambiguating, paraphrasing, expanding, specifying, and completing the received information. A couple of functions such as expression of surprise, empathy, and personal concern were identified at the relational dimension.
Conclusion: Because the doctor continuously attempts to obtain more information regarding the symptoms of the patient during the medical interview, the maximally efficient exchange of information must be the ultimate goal pursued in doctor-patient conversation. The frequent appearance of reflecting utterances can be explained from this perspective. It can be also suggested that the reflecting utterances could contribute to the management of interpersonal relationships as they give the impression of personal involvement.
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KEYWORD
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Reflecting utterance, Exchange of information, Conversational Maxims, Empathy
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