Managing Awkward, Sensitive, or Delicate Topics in (Chinese) Radio Medical Consultations

Abstract

This study, using conversation analysis as the research methodology, probes into the use of nage (literally "that") as a practice of managing awkward, sensitive, or delicate issues in radio phone-in medical consultations about sex-related problems. Through sequential manipulation and turn manipulation, the caller uses stand-alone nage, either as a pronoun referring to a sex organ or sex-related problem or as a filler, to delay or to build up to the explicit mentioning of the names of sex organs or sex-related problems. In addition, nage also makes a compounded occurrence as "nage þ noun." Both in the stand-alone form and the compounded form, nage as a delicate issue managing practice in some sense helps the caller to distance him-or herself from sex-related topics, which are normatively avoided in conversations, and simultaneously helps the caller to portray him-or herself as a victim rather than an agent of the sex-related problems.

Managing a moral identity in debt advice conversations

“…Her immediate answer could possibly be interpreted as incompetence, which may be why she follows the utterance with a repair which reframes her stance on bankruptcy as a personal choice. It can be noted that the client glosses over the word ‘bankruptcy’ by using ‘that’ instead, which has been found in other contexts of discussing delicate topics (Silverman & Peräkylä, ; Yu & Wu, ). Although the advisor persists with the line of questioning, her initial question (‘you didn't want to do that why why not’) is immediately followed by a repair that is less personal (‘why would you not want to do that’).…”

Talking delicately: Providing opportunistic weight loss advice to people living with obesity

“… “°°>>it’s ghunna be a bit of a<< > awk ward conversation” 05-02-16 Hesitation and perturbations Hesitation in the GPs' talk could be seen through pauses, re-starting incomplete words/phrases and self-repairs of words. This type of hesitation is often seen in talk that is discussing something ‘delicate’ ( Silverman & Peräkylä, 1990 ; Weijts et al, 1993 ; Yu & Wu, 2015 ). “we- ↑um we have- ↓talked about- about weight quite a bit before” 31-04-58 …”

“…The ‘delicate features’ found when talking about weight loss to patients living with obesity are similar to what is seen in talk around other intrinsically delicate topics. For example, they have been shown to occur when counselling people about AIDS, talking about sex or talking about death ( Silverman & Peräkylä, 1990 ; Weijts et al, 1993 ; Yu & Wu, 2015 ). It also has previously been observed that GPs construct talk delicately when raising weight in New Zealand consultations ( Gray et al., 2018 ).…”

Practices of Delivering Dispreferred Responses in English Talk Show Interaction

“…One practice of delivering dispreferred responses in the data is delaying their occurrences, which can be performed both at the level of turns and at the level of sequences, that is, through turn design and through sequential manipulation (Yu & Wu, 2015).…”