Multilingual clinical interactions in Dentistry: A microanalysis

Abstract

One dimension of the interactional complexities of a multilingual dental teaching hospital is the clinical consultation. Standard dental consultations are routinely triadic formulations of dentist/ patient/dental surgery assistant (DSA). In a teaching clinic, this pattern may be disrupted with clinical tutors/supervisors joining the interaction or with student peers adopting a support or assisting role. This presentation examines a triadic interaction between a dentist, patient and dental surgery assistant in one multilingual clinical consultation. Using Conversation Analysis (CA) as an analytic tool, we examine how a multilingual context may affect the sequential organisation of talk. Specifically, we examine two features. First, we focus on the construction of the interactional sequence exploring how the pattern of talk is formulated when the DSA adopts the dual roles of translator and clinical support staff. Second, we examine an instance of the communication of diagnostic ‘bad news’ and how the sequence organization of this is co-constructed through interpretation.