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Discourse research has repeatedly dealt with interruptions as indicators of power and dominance, especially in the context of gender and status. But little research has used doctor—patient communication as a database. From a total of 576 medical interviews, 48 were selected for a qualitative context-bound in-depth analysis of interruptions and were evaluated statistically. Our findings support a differentiated interpretation: regardless of gender, physicians use more non-supportive interruptions than patients ( p = 0.000); patients failed to interrupt physicians more frequently than vice versa ( p = 0.034), even more so with senior physicians than with doctors-in-training ( p = 0.003). Here, status seems to be the decisive variable. However, both female patients and female doctors produced more supportive interruptions than males ( p = 0.013). Furthermore, contrary to intuition, we were able to show that interviews take longer the more physicians interrupt. The article closes with a critical discussion concerning the conjunction of qualitative and quantifying methods within discourse analysis.

From a traditional point of view, meetings are the more efficient the better they are prepared, the more clearly they are structured and the less ambiguously verbal contributions are formulated. But what if environment conditions change and the current preparations do not suit any longer? In such a case the participants of a meeting (and organizations in general) have to adapt to change. In order to achieve this it is useful to possess a high degree of complexity, something which contradicts the principle of complexity-reduction by highly structuring. These contradictory, even paradoxical demands made on organizations, the balance between stability (structure) and flexibility (maintenance of ambiguity) are predominantly established and solved through specific types of communication which can be described in discourse-analytic terms. As a consequence, this article argues, in some cases it is more efficient for members of an organization to be as ambiguous and lowly structured as possible in order to keep different options (adaptability to change) available.

Abbildung 3.3 "Mikro-" und "Makroanalyse" im Rahmen der diskursiven Praxis ....... 44 Abbildung 4.1 Das Modell des Organisierens nach Weick .

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