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Chapter 9. When emergencies are not urgent

Requesting help in calls to 911 Costa Rica
  • Alexa Bolaños-Carpio
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Mobilizing Others
This chapter is in the book Mobilizing Others

Abstract

This study examines the activity of requesting help in emergency calls, using 911 Costa Rica as a case study. Focusing on the notions of contingency-entitlement, benefactors and beneficiaries, and the urgency of the incident, the findings show that the design of the request for non-life-threatening incidents can encode the caller’s low entitlement to the request via the phrase para ver si ‘to see if.’ When using this phrase in conjunction with other linguistic forms (such as modal periphrasis), the caller’s entitlement to the request is further downgraded. Regardless of the type of incident and the linguistic forms used in the request for help, call-takers’ next relevant action is asking the location of the incident or verifying the caller’s information.

Abstract

This study examines the activity of requesting help in emergency calls, using 911 Costa Rica as a case study. Focusing on the notions of contingency-entitlement, benefactors and beneficiaries, and the urgency of the incident, the findings show that the design of the request for non-life-threatening incidents can encode the caller’s low entitlement to the request via the phrase para ver si ‘to see if.’ When using this phrase in conjunction with other linguistic forms (such as modal periphrasis), the caller’s entitlement to the request is further downgraded. Regardless of the type of incident and the linguistic forms used in the request for help, call-takers’ next relevant action is asking the location of the incident or verifying the caller’s information.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Chapter 1. Mobilizing others 1
  4. Chapter 2. Requesting here-and-now actions with two imperative formats in Korean interaction 19
  5. Chapter 3. Mobilizing for the next relevant action 47
  6. Chapter 4. Recruitments in French 83
  7. Chapter 5. Mobilizing student compliance 115
  8. Chapter 6. Linguistic structures emerging in the synchronization of a Pilates class 147
  9. Chapter 7. Multimodal mechanisms for mobilizing students to give pre-structured responses in French L2 classroom interaction 175
  10. Chapter 8. Mobilizing others when you have little (recognizable) language 203
  11. Chapter 9. When emergencies are not urgent 229
  12. Chapter 10. Doing more than expected 253
  13. Appendix. Glossary of transcription conventions 279
  14. Index 283
https://doi.org/10.1075/slsi.33.09bol

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Chapter 1. Mobilizing others 1
  4. Chapter 2. Requesting here-and-now actions with two imperative formats in Korean interaction 19
  5. Chapter 3. Mobilizing for the next relevant action 47
  6. Chapter 4. Recruitments in French 83
  7. Chapter 5. Mobilizing student compliance 115
  8. Chapter 6. Linguistic structures emerging in the synchronization of a Pilates class 147
  9. Chapter 7. Multimodal mechanisms for mobilizing students to give pre-structured responses in French L2 classroom interaction 175
  10. Chapter 8. Mobilizing others when you have little (recognizable) language 203
  11. Chapter 9. When emergencies are not urgent 229
  12. Chapter 10. Doing more than expected 253
  13. Appendix. Glossary of transcription conventions 279
  14. Index 283
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