As I continue this journey into the topic of interruptions for my senior comp, I have found alot of different articles that have allowed me to have a better understanding of power dynamics and the ways in which we communicate with one another. Although I have initially looked at interruptions in general, I have found specific situational context for interruptive behavior that is very interesting and can help set up ideas for my comp. This article by Menz and Al-Roubaie looks at interruptions in doctor-patient interruptions. They are analyzing three specific ideas. One is to see if interruptions correlate with a person's gender. The second is to see the relationship between interruptions and the doctor's level of training (as either intern or senior). The last is if the length of the interview led to more interruptions. Both supportive and non-supportive interruptions were evaluated. Supportive interruptions were coded as signals of interest in what was being said, described as "physicians maintenance and co-construction of patient-initiated topics" (649). Non-supportive interruptions included violating speaker and are described as "overlapping sequences as violation to speaker's rights" (650).
Results show that doctors of either status (senior or intern) were involved in more non-supportive interruptive behavior than patients. Patients interrupt interns more than senior status doctors. Overall females in general initiated supporting interruptions more than males.
This article is important in understanding status and the role that status plays in interruptive behavior. Also, in terms of gender, this experiment shows different ways in which people interrupt and what type of interruptions occur. I like the ideas that Menz and Al-Roubaie lay out in their study and think that understanding status difference is an important factor to consider when thinking about conversational behavior in two person or group conversations. The only thing to consider is that in these interviews doctors in a hospital setting are typically not going to bring up issues in which cause argument among patients and therefore non-supportive interruptions are not going to be aggressive power displays.
As I continue my comp research, I am interested in looking into more situational context in which elicit interruptions or that look at status differences among individuals in conversation.
Menz, F. & Al-Roubaie, A. (2008). Interruptions, status, and gender in medical interviews:The harder you brake, the longer it takes. Discourse & Society, 19(5), 645-66.
Comments (1)
I think you're right that it is important to disentangle status from gender when thinking about interruptions. Do masculine people interrupt more because they are masculine, or because they tend to be the ones in control of a conversation (i.e., the ones with high status, power)? Is this a larger problem with our conception of masculine vs. feminine personalities? Have we simply confounded this gender distinction with people who tend to have more power and people who don't? Could we eliminate the masculine vs. feminine distinction? Or, are there other aspects that gender identity captures beyond the power dynamics of high vs. low status individuals?
One other question, aside from interruptions, have you come across any other linguistic markers of power in conversations? In other words, what other liguistic markers could people use to express their power/status in a conversation (besides interrupting the other person)?
Posted by Prof Knupsky | April 7, 2009 9:30 AM
Posted on April 7, 2009 09:30