Facework in Patient Requests for Treatment Recommendations in Korean Medical Interactions: The Use of Main Clause Omission

Abstract

AbstractThis studyexamined the involvementof facework in main clause omissions employed by patients when performing requests. The data were drawn from a corpus of videotaped primary care visits collected from Korean medical practitioners. Drawing on previous work on faceworkin politeness research, requests in conversation analytic research, and main clause ellipsis in Korean, the study found that main clause omissions provided a mechanism for patients to minimize any threats to the participants’ face when requesting a prescription for a treatment plan. By employing this practice, patients were able to prove the relevance for a proposed treatment without directly requesting it. By only providing the relevance for a specific type of treatment by omitting the main clause, the patient allowed the doctor to indirectly reject or grant the request. The analysis allowed the notion of facework to be respecified as one emerging from both participants’ joint construction of the sequential unfolding of the interaction. This study supports the view that face is a discursive, interactional, and social accomplishment by examining a linguistic practice employed primarily by patients in Korean medical interactions. The role of epistemic imbalance and asymmetry in this setting is also discussed.