Claiming power in doctor-patient talk - Ainsworth-Vaughn, Nancy (Oxford University Press, 1998)
Includes bibliographical references (p. 201-209) and index
Studying Power -- - A Sense of the Moment: Theory, Methodology, Data -- - The Whirlpool Discourse: Many Ways of Claiming Power -- - Quantitative Studies of Power-Claiming Talk -- - Gender and Topic Control -- - A Genre of Questions? -- - Qualitative Studies: Co-Constructing Power and Identity -- - Is That a Rhetorical Question? -- - "Geez Where'd You Find THAT?": Co-Constructing Story and Self in Oncology Encounters -- - Diagnosis as Storytelling -- - Implications for Practice -- - Active Patients, Cooperative Physicians -- - Transcription Conventions
Are patients passive, or merely deferent? How does gender affect questioning and topic control in medical encounters? What does it sound like when physician and patient co-construct a diagnosis through storytelling? Nancy Ainsworth-Vaughn, a sociolinguist, ethnographer, and cancer survivor, answers questions such as these in a study of 100 medical encounters, with balanced numbers of men and women among physicians as well as patients. Ainsworth-Vaughn draws upon linguistics and medical ethics to develop a comprehensive theory of types of power. She engages critical problems in discourse theory, expanding our understanding of topic transitions, questions, ambiguity, and co-construction