Sentence to Ten Cents: A Case Study of Relevance and Communicative Success in Nonnative-Native Speaker Interactions in a Medical Setting.

In cross-cultural interaction in medical settings, there is great potential for miscommunication. This potential is increased when the language proficiency of one of the interactants is low. In the data presented here of such interaction, however, the instances of miscommunication are quickly resolved and communication proceeds. Three sources of communicative success are suggested. Most important is the ability of both parties to draw contextually triggered inferences which provide a basis for (1) making perceptual contributions and (2) using communication strategies. These inferencing abilities and communication strategies are guided by the expectation of and search for relevance (Sperber and Wilson 1995) which allows interaction to proceed. A third source of success is the professional knowledge and skill of the interactants which not only enable interaction to proceed but to do so toward professional goals. The implications of these findings contribute to our understanding of models of intentional communication

[1]  Alfred Schuetz,et al.  Common-Sense and Scientific Interpretation of Human Action , 1953 .

[2]  Alfred Schutz,et al.  Common Sense and Scientific Interpretation of Human Action , 1962 .

[3]  A. Schutz.  The phenomenology of the social world , 1967 .

[4]  H. Grice.  Logic and conversation , 1975 .

[5]  D. Terence Langendoen,et al.  An Integrated Theory of Linguistic Ability , 1977 .

[6]  H. Grice.  Further Notes on Logic and Conversation , 1978 .

[7]  Gerald Gazdar,et al.  Pragmatics: Implicature, Presupposition, and Logical Form , 1978 .

[8]  M. Swain,et al.  THEORETICAL BASES OF COMMUNICATIVE APPROACHES TO SECOND LANGUAGE TEACHING AND TESTING , 1980 .

[9]  A. Grimshaw,et al.  Mishearings, Misunderstandings, and Other Nonsuccesses in Talk: A Plea for Redress of Speaker‐Oriented Bias , 1980 .

[10]  E. Tarone.  Some Thoughts on the Notion of Communication Strategy , 1981 .

[11]  J. R. Hurford,et al.  Semantics: A Coursebook , 1983 .

[12]  Language and social identity: Fact and inference in courtroom testimony , 1983 .

[13]  Erving Goffman,et al.  Felicity's Condition , 1983, American Journal of Sociology.

[14]  C. West.  Routine Complications: Troubles with Talk Between Doctors and Patients , 1984 .

[15]  D. Schiffrin.  Meaning, form, and use in context : linguistic applications , 1984 .

[16]  R. Hahn.  BETWEEN TWO WORLDS PHYSICIANS AS PATIENTS , 1985 .

[17]  L. Camino,et al.  “Hidden” popular illnesses in primary care: Residents' recognition and clinical implications , 1985, Culture, medicine and psychiatry.

[18]  Dan Douglas,et al.  Wrestling with ‘Context’ in Interlanguage Theory* , 1985 .

[19]  Evangeline Marlos Varonis,et al.  Miscommunication in native/nonnative conversation , 1985, Language in Society.

[20]  Evangeline Marlos Varonis,et al.  Variation in Native Speaker Speech Modification to Non-Native Speakers , 1985, Studies in Second Language Acquisition.

[21]  D. Sperber,et al.  Relevance: Communication and Cognition , 1997 .

[22]  Deborah Tannen,et al.  Medical professionals and parents: A linguistic analysis of communication across contexts , 1986, Language in Society.

[23]  S. Freeman.  Organizational constraints as communicative variables in bureaucratic medical settings: A case study of patient‐initiated referral talk in independent practice association‐affiliated practices , 1987 .

[24]  S. Freeman.  Introduction. Verbal communication in medical encounters: An overview of recent work , 1987 .

[25]  P. Carrell.  Content and Formal Schemata in ESL Reading , 1987 .

[26]  Anne Cutler,et al.  The predominance of strong initial syllables in the English vocabulary , 1987 .

[27]  Barbara A. Fox.  Interactional Reconstruction in Real-Time Language Processing , 1987, Cogn. Sci..

[28]  A. Cicourel.  Cognitive and Organizational Aspects of Medical Diagnostic Reasoning. , 1987 .

[29]  F. Erickson,et al.  Topic control and person control: A thorny problem for foreign physicians in interaction with American patients , 1987 .

[30]  D. Sperber,et al.  Précis of Relevance: Communication and Cognition , 1987 .

[31]  Anita M. Pomerantz,et al.  Students clinicians’ difficulties while conducting the summary diagnostic interview , 1987 .

[32]  R. Wodak,et al.  Medical interviews in internal medicine. Some results of an empirical investigation. , 1987 .

[33]  M. Heller,et al.  First Encounters: The Role of Communication in the Medical Intake Process. , 1987 .

[34]  Mark Steedman,et al.  Interaction with context during human sentence processing , 1988, Cognition.

[35]  Andrew E. Slaby,et al.  The Illness Narratives: Suffering, Healing and the Human Condition , 1988 .

[36]  D. Sperber,et al.  Relevance: Communication and Cognition , 1989 .

[37]  W. Levelt,et al.  Speaking: From Intention to Articulation , 1990 .

[38]  Yukie Horiba.  Narrative Comprehension Processes: A Study of Native and Non-Native Readers of Japanese. , 1990 .

[39]  W. Poulisse,et al.  The Use of Compensatory Strategies by Dutch Learners of English , 1990 .

[40]  G. Galanti.  Caring for patients from different cultures : case studies from American hospitals , 1991 .

[41]  Norman Fineman.  The social construction of noncompliance: a study of health care and social service providers in everyday practice , 1991 .

[42]  D. Maynard,et al.  Interaction and Asymmetry in Clinical Discourse , 1991, American Journal of Sociology.

[43]  S. Levinson.  Pragmatic reduction of the Binding Conditions revisited , 1991, Journal of Linguistics.

[44]  Yan Huang,et al.  A neo-Gricean pragmatic theory of anaphora , 1991 .

[45]  Formal and Content Schemata Activation in L2 Viewing Comprehension , 1991 .

[46]  Jane Zuengler,et al.  Relative Knowledge of Content Domain: An Influence on Native-Non-native Conversations , 1991 .

[47]  S. Erzinger,et al.  Communication between Spanish-speaking patients and their doctors in medical encounters , 1991, Culture, medicine and psychiatry.

[48]  Paul Drew,et al.  Analyzing talk at work: an introduction , 1992 .

[49]  Susan E Ranney,et al.  Learning a New Script: An Exploration of Sociolinguistic Competence , 1992 .

[50]  Patricia Dunkel,et al.  The Effect of Speech Modification, Prior Knowledge, and Listening Proficiency on EFL Lecture Learning , 1992 .

[51]  Henk G. Schmidt,et al.  On the Role of Biomedical Knowledge in Clinical Reasoning by Experts, Intermediates and Novices , 1992, Cogn. Sci..

[52]  K. Koehler,et al.  The Relationship Between Native Speaker Judgments of Nonnative Pronunciation and Deviance in Segmentais, Prosody, and Syllable Structure , 1992 .

[53]  E. Mishler,et al.  Attending to patients' stories: reframing the clinical task , 1992 .

[54]  R. Pinder.  Coherence and incoherence: doctors' and patients' perspectives on the diagnosis of Parkinson's Disease , 1992 .

[55]  Deirdre Wilson.  Relevance and understanding , 1993 .

[56]  T. L. Scheid-Cook,et al.  Controllers and controlled: an analysis of participant constructions of outpatient commitment , 1993 .

[57]  Tomoko Matsui,et al.  Bridging reference and the notions of topic' and focus' , 1993 .

[58]  W. Weijts,et al.  Talking delicacy: speaking about sexuality during gynaecological consultations , 1993 .

[59]  Lawrence F. Bouton.  Conversational implicature in a second language: learned slowly when not deliberately taught , 1994 .

[60]  Morton Ann Gernsbacher,et al.  In Search of Complete Comprehension: Getting "Minimalists" to Work. , 1994, Discourse processes.

[61]  T. Pica.  Research on Negotiation: What Does It Reveal about Second-Language Learning Conditions, Processes, and Outcomes?. , 1994 .

[62]  M. Singer,et al.  Discourse inference processes. , 1994 .

[63]  M. Sorjonen.  Constituting and maintaining activities across sequences: And-prefacing as a feature of question design , 1994, Language in Society.

[64]  A. Soyland.  Functions of the psychiatric case-summary , 1994 .

[65]  H. Hamilton.  Conversations with an Alzheimer's patient: Questions , 1994 .

[66]  Paul P. Maglio,et al.  On Distinguishing Epistemic from Pragmatic Action , 1994, Cogn. Sci..

[67]  S. Pinker.  The Language Instinct , 1994 .

[68]  C. Creider.  Hand and Mind: What Gestures Reveal about Thought , 1994 .

[69]  R. Secker-Walker,et al.  Mohawk English in the medical interview. , 1995, Medical anthropology quarterly.

[70]  David Kirsh,et al.  The Intelligent Use of Space , 1995, Artif. Intell..

[71]  Andrea Tyler,et al.  The Coconstruction of Cross-Cultural Miscommunication , 1995, Studies in Second Language Acquisition.

[72]  S. Fisher,et al.  Nursing Wounds: Nurse Practitioners, Doctors, Women Patients, and the Negotiation of Meaning , 1995 .

[73]  Ivana Marková,et al.  Mutualities in Dialogue , 1996 .

[74]  D. Cortés.  Assessing and Treating Culturally Diverse Clients: A Practical Guide. , 1997 .