Utterance Patterns and Politeness Strategies in Indonesian Medical Discourse

 

 

Emalia Iragiliati

 

 

The ability to communicate effectively is the key aspect of utterances in communication between a doctor and a patient. It does not only cover the medical but also the non-medical aspects of the interaction. In this context, the ability to communicate effectively is indispensable. Inability to communicate well will cause a disturbing misunderstanding between doctors and patients. The general objective of this study is to describe and explain the use of utterance patterns and politeness strategies by medical students when they communicate with patients in the internship program.

 

This study is of qualitative nature. The subjects are medical students during their internship program at the dr. Saiful Anwar Malang teaching hospital in Malang. The data of this study are utterances in medical discourse between medical students and third class patients at the teaching hospital, i.e., the in-patients at the pediatric department during the ‘follow-up’ sessions and the out-patients at the polyclinic of the obstetric department during the ‘initial anamneses’ period. The data were elicited through non-participant direct observation, in-depth interview and recording of utterances between the medical students and the patients. Data were analysed using the ‘interaction model’ of Miles & Huberman. The steps in the data analysis are (1) data reduction, (2) data specification, and (3) conclusions and verifications. The data were validated on the basis of the theory and method of triangulation.

 

The research results are classified into three groups. The first result shows that the utterance patterns used by medical doctors towards in-patients during the follow-up session consist of five stages, i.e., (1) greetings using terms of address, (2) eliciting patients’ progress, (3) eliciting patients’ emotional factors, (4) eliciting patients’ reasons, and (5) closing. The second research result shows that the utterance patterns adopted by medical doctors towards out-patients during the ‘initial anamneses’ period consist of three stages, i.e., (1) eliciting patients’ progress, (2) eliciting patients’ emotional factors, and (3) eliciting patients’ reasons. The third result shows that the medical students have the tendency to use simultaneously politeness strategies in medical discourse and the local cultural values strategies in non-medical discourse when communicating with patients. The selection of the politeness strategies by the medical students are based on the four basic rules of the Javanese principle of harmony of Gunarwan: kurmat (respect), andhap-asor (modesty), empan-papan (place/position consciousness), and tepa-selira (empathy).

 

The results of this study yield several suggestions. First, doctors and nurses are suggested to consider the importance of politeness strategies involving the local cultural values in their interaction with patients related to the ‘family doctor’ system. Second, curriculum developers and policy makers for the Medical Faculty and Nurse Program need to consider the importance of politeness in utterance patterns and local cultural values in the formulation of the curriculum. Third, future researchers are expected to conduct similar studies on the importance of politeness in institutional settings with relation to other fields of discipline and local culture values.

------- ---- ----------

 

Iragiliati, E. (2005). Utterance patterns and politeness strategies in Indonesian medical discourses. Unpublished PhD Thesis. Malang: State Univeristy of Malang, Indonesia.

 

Website: www.geocities.com/eltindonesia

Email: eltindonesia@yahoo.com