A call taker is the first point of contact in the emergency service system and thus the interface
between the caller and ambulance dispatch. Misunderstandings in an emergency call have
implications for the survival of patients. Using an applied conversation analytic approach this study
examined participants’ use of conversational repair as an interactional strategy. Data included 101
calls from a South African emergency medical services call centre. The data set was comprised of
two distinct subsets, namely: the 107 and public corpora. The 107 corpus (53 calls) contained calls
from a general emergency call centre. The 107 caller thus served as a mediating party on behalf of
the public caller. The public corpus (48 calls) comprised calls received directly from members of the
public. The data subsets afforded a unique opportunity to analyse ways in which participants to an
emergency call manage asymmetries of knowledge. Differential patterns of the type and purpose of
repair were tracked across both data sets and similarities and differences were explored. Both data
sets showed that participants’ choice of interactional strategies was customized based on an
ongoing assessment of knowledge asymmetries. However, whilst knowledge asymmetries posed
some constraints an overriding interactional constraint, inherent within the institutional nature of
the emergency call, was a rigid adherence to routinized protocols. The call taker’s dilemma was thus
identified as the management of these constraints through the frequent use of conversational
repair. Although a level of responsiveness is required to glean quality information from callers, high
volumes of emergency calls would not be possible without routinized protocols. However, increased
orientation to routinized protocols led to a decreased orientation to responsiveness. This research
therefore showed that knowledge symmetry is not necessarily more advantageous but that
successful call trajectory is reliant on the call taker’s ability to maximize the collaborative nature of
the interaction and effectively negotiate through the judicious use of repair and other relevant
interactional strategies. This has important implications for call taker training.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:wits/oai:wiredspace.wits.ac.za:10539/14918 |
| Date | 17 July 2014 |
| Creators | Neel, Sheryl |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | application/pdf, application/pdf |
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