R Y Bourhis | PubMed Health

PubMed1991

Evaluative perceptions of patronizing speech addressed to elders.

Within a speech accommodation framework, speech modifications based on stereotyped expectations of elderly persons (such as patronizing speech) are hypothesized to convey less respect. Adult volunteers (N = 186) read scripts of a conversation between a nurse caregiver, using either patronizing speech or a more neutral variant, and a 76-year-old nursing home resident, depicted either as alert or forgetful. Respondents viewed the nurse in the patronizing condition as significantly less respectful and less nurturant and the recipient as more frustrated. The patronizing nurse was also rated as significantly less competent and benevolent than her counterpart in the neutral condition. The ecological validity of the contrasts between scripts was confirmed by inferences that patronizing speech was more shrill, louder, and produced with more exaggerated intonation.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1989

Communication in the hospital setting: a survey of medical and everyday language use amongst patients, nurses and doctors.

Forty physicians, 40 student nurses, and 40 hospital patients were surveyed regarding their usage and evaluations of medical and everyday language use in the hospital setting. Medical language (ML) and everyday language (EL) were operationalized as distinct speech registers that doctors, nurses and patients can use in their encounters with each other. A complex interaction of speaker characteristics (bilingualism in ML and EL) motivational factors (accommodation theory), situational language norms in favor of communicative effectiveness, as well as status and power differentials that exist between health professionals and patients were hypothesized to influence language switching strategies in the health setting. While doctors reported using mostly ML with health professionals, they did report converging to the EL of their patients. However, patients and student nurses did not perceive doctors converging to the EL of their patient. Student nurses reported using an equal mixture of ML/EL with each other, while converging to the ML of the doctor and converging to the EL of their patients. The 'communication broker' role of the nurse was corroborated by perceptions of nurses' language use from all groups. Patients reported using mostly EL with each other while attempting to converge to the ML of the health professional. Nurses perceived these attempts to converge by the patients, but doctors did not report a change in the patients' register as a function of conversants. Regarding the evaluation of language use strategies, all groups felt that it was more appropriate for health professionals to converge to the EL of patients than to maintain ML. In conversations with health professionals, patient use of EL was seen as more appropriate than ML.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Adult↗