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Chapter 10. Establishing common ground to achieve therapeutic goals

  • Keith Allan
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A Pragmatic Agenda for Healthcare
This chapter is in the book A Pragmatic Agenda for Healthcare

Abstract

Healthcare professionals can normally assume that their patients are rational people and approach verbal interaction with the patient as they would with any fellow human being. Common ground is context shared between S (speaker, writer, signer) and H (audience) where S utters U (utterance), evoking context C1 (the ‘world and time spoken of’) so as to bring about in C3 (the ‘situation of interpretation’ from H’s point of view) H’s understanding U in terms of the relevant beliefs that S holds or purports to hold uttering U, i.e. speaking of C1 in C2 (the ‘world and time spoken in’ or situation of utterance from S’s point of view).

Abstract

Healthcare professionals can normally assume that their patients are rational people and approach verbal interaction with the patient as they would with any fellow human being. Common ground is context shared between S (speaker, writer, signer) and H (audience) where S utters U (utterance), evoking context C1 (the ‘world and time spoken of’) so as to bring about in C3 (the ‘situation of interpretation’ from H’s point of view) H’s understanding U in terms of the relevant beliefs that S holds or purports to hold uttering U, i.e. speaking of C1 in C2 (the ‘world and time spoken in’ or situation of utterance from S’s point of view).

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Introduction. Fostering interdisciplinary knowledge translation at the interface between healthcare communication and pragmatics 1
  4. Section 1. Analytical approaches to health communication
  5. Chapter 1. Methodological insights for the study of communication in health 16
  6. Chapter 2. Microanalysis of Clinical Interaction (MCI) 43
  7. Chapter 3. Public disagreements among health experts and their polarizing effects during a pandemic health crisis 75
  8. Section 2. Intercultural and mediated communication
  9. Chapter 4. Face-to-face intercultural communication and mediated intercultural communication as related to health communication 106
  10. Chapter 5. On managing dyadic sequences in triadic clinician-patient-interpreter interaction 124
  11. Chapter 6. Pursuing understanding or engaging the patient? 144
  12. Section 3. Negotiation and meaning construction
  13. Chapter 7. Negotiation and joint construction of meaning (or why health providers need philosophy of communication) 172
  14. Chapter 8. Metapragmatics and reflections in support of knowledge transfer and common ground in doctor-patient interaction 200
  15. Chapter 9. The pediatrician’s normalizing practice in well-child visits 227
  16. Section 4. Expertise and common ground
  17. Chapter 10. Establishing common ground to achieve therapeutic goals 252
  18. Chapter 11. Whose common ground? 263
  19. Chapter 12. Peer experts as actors for shared understanding in Spanish online health fora 291
  20. Section 5. Uncertainty and evasive answers
  21. Chapter 13. Uncertainty in healthcare 314
  22. Chapter 14. The pragmatics of diagnostic uncertainty 330
  23. Chapter 15. On indicating and dealing with uncertainty in healthcare dialogues 359
  24. Chapter 16. How uncertainty can be turned into shared understanding 373
  25. Index 395
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.338.10all

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Introduction. Fostering interdisciplinary knowledge translation at the interface between healthcare communication and pragmatics 1
  4. Section 1. Analytical approaches to health communication
  5. Chapter 1. Methodological insights for the study of communication in health 16
  6. Chapter 2. Microanalysis of Clinical Interaction (MCI) 43
  7. Chapter 3. Public disagreements among health experts and their polarizing effects during a pandemic health crisis 75
  8. Section 2. Intercultural and mediated communication
  9. Chapter 4. Face-to-face intercultural communication and mediated intercultural communication as related to health communication 106
  10. Chapter 5. On managing dyadic sequences in triadic clinician-patient-interpreter interaction 124
  11. Chapter 6. Pursuing understanding or engaging the patient? 144
  12. Section 3. Negotiation and meaning construction
  13. Chapter 7. Negotiation and joint construction of meaning (or why health providers need philosophy of communication) 172
  14. Chapter 8. Metapragmatics and reflections in support of knowledge transfer and common ground in doctor-patient interaction 200
  15. Chapter 9. The pediatrician’s normalizing practice in well-child visits 227
  16. Section 4. Expertise and common ground
  17. Chapter 10. Establishing common ground to achieve therapeutic goals 252
  18. Chapter 11. Whose common ground? 263
  19. Chapter 12. Peer experts as actors for shared understanding in Spanish online health fora 291
  20. Section 5. Uncertainty and evasive answers
  21. Chapter 13. Uncertainty in healthcare 314
  22. Chapter 14. The pragmatics of diagnostic uncertainty 330
  23. Chapter 15. On indicating and dealing with uncertainty in healthcare dialogues 359
  24. Chapter 16. How uncertainty can be turned into shared understanding 373
  25. Index 395
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