Constructing ‘expertness’: A novice pharmacist's development of interactional competence in patient consultations
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Hanh Thi Nguyen
Hanh Thi Nguyen holds a Ph.D. in English Language and Linguistics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and is currently Assistant Professor at Hawaii Pacific University. Her research interests include the development of interactional competence in professional settings and in second language learning, identity construction and emergence in social interaction, and Vietnamese applied linguistics.
Abstract
It has been argued that being able to utilize expertise in discourse is as important as having expertise (C. Candlin and S. Candlin 2002). From a constructivist perspective, knowledgeability does not exist outside of social interaction: being expert involves performing knowledge and skills effectively in social practices (cf. Butler 1990; Lave and Wenger 1991). It is, then, crucial that novice professionals develop the interactional competence to construct themselves as experts in interaction. This study brings together perspectives from research on expert–lay communication, social interaction, and situated learning to examine how a pharmacy intern performed his professional knowledge in the practice of patient consultation over time. Using conversation analysis complemented by the interactional competence framework (Hall 1995; Young 2002), I demonstrate that as the novice pharmacist gained more experience over the course of one internship, he was able to employ professional knowledge in ways that were sensitive to the sequential organization of talk, and to share the patients' lifeworld perspectives (Mishler 1984) more effectively, thus successfully managing the transactional and interpersonal functions of the consultations. This study contributes to research on expert–lay interaction, particularly in pharmacy, and to the under-studied area of interactional competence development in the professions.
About the author
Hanh Thi Nguyen holds a Ph.D. in English Language and Linguistics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and is currently Assistant Professor at Hawaii Pacific University. Her research interests include the development of interactional competence in professional settings and in second language learning, identity construction and emergence in social interaction, and Vietnamese applied linguistics.
© Walter de Gruyter
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- Patient narratives: A micro-interactional analysis
- Unethical bunglers or humane professionals? Discussions in the media of end-of-life treatment decisions
- The rhetorical construction of ethical positions: Policy recommendations for nontherapeutic genetic testing in childhood
- Constructing ‘expertness’: A novice pharmacist's development of interactional competence in patient consultations
- The dynamics of resident–patient communication: Data from Canada
- Loss of self-control as excuse in group-therapy conversations for intimately violent men
- Integrating patients' nonmedical status in end-of-life decision making: Structuring communication through ‘conferencing’
- Index of articles in Volume 3 (2006)
- Announcements: Announcing a proposal for a COMET SOCIETY
Articles in the same Issue
- Disability and anticipatory discourse: The interconnectedness of local and global aspects of talk
- Patient narratives: A micro-interactional analysis
- Unethical bunglers or humane professionals? Discussions in the media of end-of-life treatment decisions
- The rhetorical construction of ethical positions: Policy recommendations for nontherapeutic genetic testing in childhood
- Constructing ‘expertness’: A novice pharmacist's development of interactional competence in patient consultations
- The dynamics of resident–patient communication: Data from Canada
- Loss of self-control as excuse in group-therapy conversations for intimately violent men
- Integrating patients' nonmedical status in end-of-life decision making: Structuring communication through ‘conferencing’
- Index of articles in Volume 3 (2006)
- Announcements: Announcing a proposal for a COMET SOCIETY
