Abstract
We have conducted a video-based field study on work interactions between staff members in the corridors of a hospital outpatient clinic in the French-speaking part of Switzerland. In this paper, we examine a specific mobile interactional configuration: passing-by interactions in which staff members get involved as they walk following close and parallel trajectories going in opposite directions. We also examine a specific conversational activity performed in the corridors: checks – introduced by the French expression “Ça va?” (Going okay?) – with which one staff member verifies that the situation of a colleague conforms to a routine state of affairs. Adopting the approaches of multimodal and conversation analysis, we point out features of the interactional configuration and the conversational activity under consideration that participants combine in some excerpts analyzed in the paper. Passing-by checks are practically accomplished, on the spot, through the sequential, embodied and embedded conduct of the staff members. We identify resources involved in building close but non-convergent trajectories, limiting interactional involvement, and coordinating talk and walk for a fleeting co-presence. The article contributes to the study of “on-the-move” contingent interactions as they happen in hospital corridors.
Funding statement: The research project Mobile and Contingent Work Interactions in the Hospital Care Unit was supported by Swiss National Science Foundation grant no. 134875 (EGM, AB) and internal grants from the University of Fribourg (EGM), the Haute école de santé Arc, University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland (EGM) and the University of Neuchâtel (AB). The sources of funding and support played no role in the design or implementation of the study; in the collection, analysis and interpretation of the data; in the preparation, review or approval of the manuscript; or in the decision to submit the manuscript for publication.
Acknowledgments
The authors thank the staff of the hospital La Providence (Neuchâtel-Switzerland) for their participation in the study. They also thank the participants of the Colloquium on Work and Social Interaction III held at the University of Mannheim (October 30–31, 2014) for their supportive comments on an earlier version of this paper, the anonymous reviewer for the journal for his or her constructive critical reading of the paper and insightful suggestions, and Elisabeth Lyman for her editing work.
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest. The research protocol was accepted by the hospital’s board of directors and the clinic staff gave voluntary oral informed consent. The protocol provided for the reproduction, for the purposes of the project, of clips and images of staff members taken from the video recordings.
Appendix: Transcription conventions
- [ ]
overlapping talk
- =
continuous talk
- (.)
micro-pause
- (0.2)
silence in tenths of a second. It indicates the duration of bodily behavior when followed by its description
- .
final intonation
- ,
continuing intonation
- ?
rising intonation
- :
prolongation of the preceding sound
- speci-
cut-off
- you
emphasis
- °all right
talk starts markedly soft
- °yes°
softer talk
- ↑
rise in pitch
- ↓
fall in pitch
- thi(h)nk
plosive interpolated particle, possibly laughter
- >yes<
talk is compressed
- <because
hurried start
- ( )
unachievable, likely or alternative hearing
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