Finding Needles in the Right Haystack: Double Modals in Medical Consultations

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Penn collection
University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics
Degree type
Discipline
Subject
Funder
Grant number
License
Copyright date
Distributor
Related resources
Contributor
Abstract

In this paper we present a case study of a syntactic sociolinguistic variable that has resisted previous attempts at quantitative analysis of usage, the double modal construction of Southern United States English (e.g., You know what might could help that is losing some weight). While naturally-occurring double modals have been exceedingly rare in sociolinguistic interviews, our study represents the very first corpus investigation of double modals through a search of the right ‘haystack’: the nationwide Verilogue, Inc database of recorded and transcribed physician-patient interactions (~85 million words). As a vast source of potentially face-threatening negotiations, the Verilogue corpus provides the ideal speech situation in which to search for low frequency, non-standard syntactic features like the double modal. A quantitative analysis of the 76 tokens extracted from doctor-patient consultations in the US South revealed that double modals are favored by doctors, especially women and those with many decades of professional experience. Among patients, those not currently in employment use double modals more frequently than the employed. We interpreted these findings with reference to the literature on the pragmatics of physician-patient talk, arguing that the double modal is used to negotiate the imbalanced power dynamic of a doctor-patient consultation. In general, the greater use of double modals by doctors shows that the construction is an active part of a doctor’s repertoire for mitigating directives. Collectively, we present a complex socio-pragmatic picture of double modal use that could not be seen without a corpus of naturally-occurring speech in a potentially face-threatening speech situation.

Advisor
Date Range for Data Collection (Start Date)
Date Range for Data Collection (End Date)
Digital Object Identifier
Series name and number
Publication date
2012-09-01
Volume number
Issue number
Publisher
Publisher DOI
Journal Issue
Journal Issue
Comments
Recommended citation
Collection