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  • Talk, work and institutional order: Discourse in medical, mediation and management settings ed. by Srikant Sarangi, Celia Roberts
  • Maurice Nevile
Talk, work and institutional order: Discourse in medical, mediation and management settings. Ed. by Srikant Sarangi and Celia Roberts. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1999. Pp. 529.

This is a valuable addition to the growing literature on workplace discourse. The editors describe the central concern of the book as exploring ‘how professional knowledge and identities are constituted in interaction within an over-arching institutional order’ (43). The book is further evidence of the value of making detailed analyses of actual instances of naturally occurring interaction. Most chapters provide what the editors call a ‘thick description’ of communicative practices, meaning they include substantial ethnographic or contextual detail from researchers’ observations and interviews with participants. The contributors draw upon a wide variety of traditions in the study of talk, including conversation analysis, pragmatics, critical discourse analysis, ethnography, and interactional sociolinguistics. Many contributors draw implicitly or explicitly on notions developed by Erving Goffman, such as the distinction between frontstage and backstage talk, footing, frame analysis, and participant roles and structures. The editors provide a useful introductory chapter which outlines the aims and scope of the volume and includes descriptions of key concepts and dominant approaches in the study of workplace discourse (61–74).

The book is then divided into three sections. Section 1 is titled ‘Medical practices and health care delivery’. It has an introduction by the editors and four chapters. These chapters are ‘Medical discourse, evidentiality and the construction of professional responsibility’ by Paul Atkinson (75–107), ‘Appropriation of voice and presentation of self as a fellow physician: Aspects of a discourse of apprenticeship in medicine’ by Frederick Erickson (109–43), ‘Local identities and institutional practices: Constructing the record of professional collaboration’ by Jenny Cook-Gumperz and Lawrence Messerman (145–81), and ‘The interaction of cognitive and cultural models in health care delivery’ by Aaron V. Cicourel (183–224).

Section 2 is titled ‘Mediation, management and social care’. This section has an introduction by the editors and five chapters. These chapters are ‘Reconfirming [End Page 622] normality: The constitution of reassurance in talks between midwives and expectant mothers’ by Margareta Bredmar and Per Linell (237–70), ‘Professional neutralism in family mediation’ by David Greatbatch and Robert Dingwall (271–92), ‘The legitimation of the client and the profession: Identities and roles in social work discourse’ by Christopher Hall, Srikant Sarangi, and Stefaan Slembrouck (293–322), ‘Industrial instability and the discourse of enterprise bargaining’ by Christopher N. Candlin, Yon Maley, and Heather Sutch (323–49), and ‘Constructing professional identity: “Doing power” in policy units’ by Janet Holmes, Maria Stubbe, and Bernadette Vine (351–85).

Section 3 is titled ‘Methodological debates’. This section has an introduction by the editors and four chapters. These chapters are ‘Warriors or collaborators: Reworking methodological controversies in the study of institutional interaction’ by David Silverman (401–25), ‘ “Text” and “con-text”: Talk bias in studies of health care work’ by Tony Hak (427–51), ‘On interactional sociolinguistic method’ by John J. Gumperz (453–71), and finally ‘Hybridity in gatekeeping discourse: Issues of practical relevance for the researcher’ by Celia Roberts and Srikant Sarangi (473–503).

A strength of the book is the number of chapters which look at backstage settings, that is professionalprofessional discourse (e.g. doctor-doctor) rather than the more commonly studied frontstage professional- lay person discourse (e.g. doctor-patient). Also, the book includes studies of some new, or less studied, workplace settings, such as social workers’ case conferences and industry enterprise bargaining sessions. On the other hand, the book continues a preference in the field for studying professional over nonprofessional workplaces. The editors’ introductions to each section, including brief summaries of each chapter, make the book easier to use.

Maurice Nevile
Australian National University
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