Abstract
Conversational strategies are the techniques that help speakers to maintain conversations going smoothly and to achieve the communicative goals. Via adopting the method of fieldwork and empirical research to collect authentic country doctor-patient conversations and making qualitative analysis with basic quantitative analysis as supplement, this study probed into the conversational strategies implemented by Chinese country doctors in communicating with their patients and furthermore, explored the social psychological functions and effects of each conversational strategy. Via collecting and analyzing 217 conversations between 10 Chinese country doctors aged from 35 to 45 with 217 patients, the author found that 12 conversational strategies were employed by Chinese country doctors to help their patients be more cooperative in the process of diagnosis and more positive and active to the treatment, which were greeting, enquiry, instruction in diagnosis, data display, assertion, instruction after diagnosis, explanation, comparison, comforting, praise, warning, and kinship address. Moreover, instruction in diagnosis consists of two kinds which are direct instruction and instruction with request. Instruction after diagnosis consists of three types which are simple instruction, instruction with negation, and instruction with consultation. Explanation consists of four different ways which are explanation with medical knowledge, explanation with government policy, explanation with patient’s behavior, and explanation with slang. Comparison consists of two parts which are vertical comparison and horizontal comparison, and horizontal comparison is further divided into two kinds which are upward comparison and downward comparison. Additionally, different conversational strategies observed or violated different maxims of politeness principle and thus, caused different topical and social psychological functions and effects on patients and thus, help them be more cooperative and positive.
Highlights
Researchers have offered different definitions and explanations of conversational strategies from distinct angles
This study aims at, first, finding out the conversational strategies adopted by Chinese country doctors in communicating with their patients so as to provide some new inspirations to health professionals to better communicate with and help their patients, and second, exploring the social psychological functions and effects of the conversational strategies so as to delineate the social psychology of Chinese country doctors and patients deeper and clearer
Quantitative analysis mainly focuses on the statistics of the distribution of different conversational strategies by Chinese country doctors with their patients, and qualitative analysis is made to provide a detailed and in-depth exploration of the social psychological functions and effects of each conversational strategy, aiming at examining how these strategies are employed to help patients be more cooperative with the diagnosis and more active to the treatment
Summary
Researchers have offered different definitions and explanations of conversational strategies from distinct angles. Dörnyei and Thurrell [8] defined conversational strategies as “an invaluable means of dealing with communication 'trouble spots', such as not knowing a particular word, or misunderstanding the other speaker”. They thought that conversational strategies “can enhance fluency and add to the efficiency of communication” [8]. This study is designed to describe conversational strategies as techniques that help country doctors sustain the conversations with their patients going smoothly and make their patients be more cooperative in the process of diagnosis and be more positive and active in treatment. Conversational strategies have aroused many linguistic researchers’ interests to carry out Zhongtang Wei: A Study on Conversational Strategies of Chinese Country Doctors with Their
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