Research on doctor-patient communication has characterized such interactions as being asymmetrical. The present article tries to shift emphasis away from the different orientations individuals bring to the communicative setting and attempts to highlight the different orientations ("voices") within a given individual. We draw on an in-depth analysis of discourse between a 2 l-year-old man who can be ascribed the roles of both patient and potential research subject and an interviewer who acts in both the role of medical staff and researcher. (...) Focusing our analysis on a limited number of linguistic forms (pronouns and demonstratives), it is argued that the use of the same form for different referents signals a conflation of two voices - the voice of health care ("caring") and the voice of "research." Furthermore, we argue that the voice of research is most likely to be interpreted by the patient/research subject within the framework of curing. As such, the present article promotes a shift in emphasis from different institutional - and as such often assumed to be preexisting - orientations between the communicating parties to differing orientations within the individual that cannot help but be misconstrued in terms of the curing voice. Our conclusion focuses on the ethical and discourse analytic implications of analyzing voices in a discussion. (shrink)

Common folks “have” emotions and talk to others; and sometimes they make “their” emotions the topic of such talk. The emotions seem to be “theirs,” since they can be conceived of as private states ; and they can be topicalized, because we seem to be able to attribute or lend a conventionalized public form to some inner state or event. This is the way much of our folk-talk and folk-thinking about emotions, the expression thereof, the role of language in these (...) expressions, and communication in general are organized. However, as we have shown, such talk serves the purpose of communicating effectively and reaching mutual understanding. (shrink)

In our commentary we elaborate on Barresi & Moore's use of language as a tool. In particular, we highlight the importance of cognitive linguistic research with its emphasis on the relation between morpnosyntax and intentional schemes. We also speculate about how language itself might play a role in children's integration of first and third person knowledge.