The collective voice: Legitimation strategies in focus group discussions with nurses in municipal palliative care for older people in Sweden
Issue: Vol 11 No. 2 (2014)
Journal: Communication & Medicine
Subject Areas: Healthcare Communication Linguistics
Abstract:
This paper explores focus group discussions of registered nurses in municipal palliative care for older people, using data collected by researchers with an interest in health sciences. The linguistically based discourse analyis builds on a combination of Bakhtinian notions of dialogicity, the Other and addressivity, the use of quotations, and also van Leeuwen’s framework for legitimation in discourse. The aim is to investigate strategies of addressing and legitimizing palliative care. Three types of narrative are discerned: the cautionary tale, fictionalization of professional experiences and the enactment of a fictive dialogue. The other professions involved (physicians, assistant nurses) are positioned as the Other as a means of legitimizing the perspectives of the registered nurses. As the patients and their next of kin are the objects of professional activities, the notion of the Third (connecting to the Other) is proposed. The objectification is a manifestation of commitment with routinized and professional distance to the patients.
Author: Henrik Rahm, Magdalena Andersson, Anna-Karin Edberg
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