Accounts on the Behalf of Patients during Geriatric Case Conferences

TY - JOUR

T1 - Accounts on the Behalf of Patients during Geriatric Case Conferences

AU - Nielsen, Søren Beck

PY - 2009

Y1 - 2009

N2 - The analysis of actors' accounts for their actions can reveal actors' understandings of local situations and of social standards. In this paper, I discuss some of the consequences of a variant of accounting for one's own actions, namely accounting for someone else's actions. Accounts given on someone else's behalf explain another person's conduct. Potentially, such accounts therefore undermine interlocutors as natural tellers of personal experience and one might expect this kind of account-giving to be a delicate matter. In this paper, however, I demonstrate that a powerful, supportive aspect of the practice is that in explaining a previous turn, it treats the original speaker as a sense-producing individual. Accounts made on behalf of patients during case conferences in the geriatric wards of Danish hospitals are investigated. Results show that such accounts simultaneously perform two kinds of actions: they seek to establish a local understanding of a prior utterance and, at the same time, they seek to establish understandings of the patients as sensible and autonomous human beings.

AB - The analysis of actors' accounts for their actions can reveal actors' understandings of local situations and of social standards. In this paper, I discuss some of the consequences of a variant of accounting for one's own actions, namely accounting for someone else's actions. Accounts given on someone else's behalf explain another person's conduct. Potentially, such accounts therefore undermine interlocutors as natural tellers of personal experience and one might expect this kind of account-giving to be a delicate matter. In this paper, however, I demonstrate that a powerful, supportive aspect of the practice is that in explaining a previous turn, it treats the original speaker as a sense-producing individual. Accounts made on behalf of patients during case conferences in the geriatric wards of Danish hospitals are investigated. Results show that such accounts simultaneously perform two kinds of actions: they seek to establish a local understanding of a prior utterance and, at the same time, they seek to establish understandings of the patients as sensible and autonomous human beings.

M3 - Journal article

SN - 0835-1813

VL - 42

SP - 231

EP - 248

JO - Research on Language and Social Interaction

JF - Research on Language and Social Interaction

IS - 3

ER -