Discursive Repetitions and Voices in Nigerian Clinical Meetings

Abstract

Previous studies on discursive repetitions have acknowledged other- repetitions/reformulations in consultative meetings but have neither focused on the occurrences of a combination of self and other repetitions nor connected them to the polyphonic dimensions of the interactions. Arguing that discursive repetitions sometimes work to demonstrate multiple voices on diagnoses and health state assessments in Nigerian hospital meetings, and that they consequently exert an influence on the negotiation of clinical outcomes, the paper analyses 100 repetitions in 30 doctor-patient interactions in Out- Patient Department clinics in South-western Nigerian hospitals. The analysis shows that doctors repeat (non)-contiguous constituents of their turns in a way that superposes the conjectural voice of the doctor, the medical institutional voice, the voice of medical science and the voice of culture (parenting). Repetitive turns and voices are negotiated with consultative parties’ common ground of medical procedures, previous joint/separate clinical encounters and patients’ preferences, eventuating in three clinical outcomes: verdicts on patients’ health state, commitment to adherence and admittance of non- compliance with regimens.