Friendly or condescending?

Abstract

This article illustrates how participants’ sense of appropriate language use is discursively negotiated, examining entries in online discussion boards regarding medical practitioners’ use and non-use of honorifics. The analysis shows social factors deemed relevant by the discussion board participants regarding their evaluations on honorifics use and non-use such as interlocutors’ age and social distance as well as the location and type of medical institution. Participants’ evaluations, the article demonstrates, are based on their views of medical practice (whether it is similar to or different from other types of service, whether it is similar to first-time encounters, and so forth). Medical practitioners’ non-use of honorifics tends to be accepted and appreciated in a context in which the addressee (patient) experiences urgency, vulnerability, and/or anxiety. Lastly, the study illustrates the process of enregisterment of honorific usage.