Published: 2017-09-21
ISBN: 978-91-7685-423-5
ISSN: 1650-3686 (print), 1650-3740 (online)
Research on healthcare communication has focused little on the semiotics of gesture in interaction. This paper presents an analysis of how patients and physicians use gestures in actual consultations, focusing specifically on body-oriented gestures (i.e., those in which a part of the body, either through indication or demonstration, plays an integral role in the speaker’s meaning). Two publically-available training DVDs for general practice consultations provided 29 minutes of excerpts from actual patient-physician encounters between nine physicians and twelve patients. All gestures were located. Body-oriented gestures were analysed for their relationship to speech and function in the interactions. Results showed that 104/238 of patients’ gestures and 30/178 of physicians’ gestures were body-oriented. Gesture and speech conveyed complementary information suited to each modality. These gestures served a variety of functions (e.g., establishing mutual understanding, foreshadowing information that would be contributed later, providing cohesion between topics). Just as research on healthcare communication would benefit from further exploration of the semiotics of gesture use, these findings illustrate potential for basic research: healthcare interactions offer a practical arena for investigating how patients and physicians integrate gesture and speech as they discuss consequential topics such as symptom relief, diagnosis, decisions, and treatment plans.
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