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Chapter 9. OKAY in health helpline calls in Brazil

Managing alignment and progressivity
  • Ana Cristina Ostermann and Katariina Harjunpää
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OKAY across Languages
This chapter is in the book OKAY across Languages

Abstract

This chapter investigates phone calls to a health helpline in Brazilian Portuguese, focusing on how call-takers employ OKAY as a resource in managing the participants’ mutual alignment and the progression of activities during the calls. Call-takers make use of OKAY in transitioning between main and subsidiary actions and activities and in eliciting uptake from the recipient. In both contexts, the use of OKAY relates to the work of managing the institutional agenda and technical resources in relation to the situated concerns of the callers. The analysis thus contributes to the study of particles and institutional interaction by showing how OKAY is used in organizing the routinized, agenda-driven conversational structures of helpline interactions.

Abstract

This chapter investigates phone calls to a health helpline in Brazilian Portuguese, focusing on how call-takers employ OKAY as a resource in managing the participants’ mutual alignment and the progression of activities during the calls. Call-takers make use of OKAY in transitioning between main and subsidiary actions and activities and in eliciting uptake from the recipient. In both contexts, the use of OKAY relates to the work of managing the institutional agenda and technical resources in relation to the situated concerns of the callers. The analysis thus contributes to the study of particles and institutional interaction by showing how OKAY is used in organizing the routinized, agenda-driven conversational structures of helpline interactions.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Acknowledgements vii
  4. Chapter 1. Introduction 1
  5. Chapter 2. Data and methods used in the study of OKAY across languages 29
  6. Generic sequential uses of OKAY across languages
  7. Chapter 3. OKAY in responding and claiming understanding 55
  8. Chapter 4. OKAY in closings and transitions 93
  9. OKAY in specific languages
  10. Chapter 5. The prosody and phonetics of OKAY in American English 131
  11. Chapter 6. Rising OKAY in third position in Danish talk-in-interaction 175
  12. Chapter 7. OKAY as a response to informings in Finnish 205
  13. Chapter 8. When OKAY is repeated 235
  14. OKAY in specific activities and settings
  15. Chapter 9. OKAY in health helpline calls in Brazil 269
  16. Chapter 10. A resource for action transition 301
  17. Chapter 11. OKAY projecting embodied compliance to directives 337
  18. Chapter 12. Coordination of OKAY, nods, and gaze in claiming understanding and closing topics 363
  19. Appendix. Transcription conventions and glossing symbols 395
  20. Bibliography 401
  21. Name index 433
  22. Subject index 437
https://doi.org/10.1075/slsi.34.09ost

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Acknowledgements vii
  4. Chapter 1. Introduction 1
  5. Chapter 2. Data and methods used in the study of OKAY across languages 29
  6. Generic sequential uses of OKAY across languages
  7. Chapter 3. OKAY in responding and claiming understanding 55
  8. Chapter 4. OKAY in closings and transitions 93
  9. OKAY in specific languages
  10. Chapter 5. The prosody and phonetics of OKAY in American English 131
  11. Chapter 6. Rising OKAY in third position in Danish talk-in-interaction 175
  12. Chapter 7. OKAY as a response to informings in Finnish 205
  13. Chapter 8. When OKAY is repeated 235
  14. OKAY in specific activities and settings
  15. Chapter 9. OKAY in health helpline calls in Brazil 269
  16. Chapter 10. A resource for action transition 301
  17. Chapter 11. OKAY projecting embodied compliance to directives 337
  18. Chapter 12. Coordination of OKAY, nods, and gaze in claiming understanding and closing topics 363
  19. Appendix. Transcription conventions and glossing symbols 395
  20. Bibliography 401
  21. Name index 433
  22. Subject index 437
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