Claiming Power in Doctor-Patient Talk

Although there is rising interest in medical discourse, there has not until now been a detailed analysis of doctor-patient interaction in a private practice setting. Nancy Ainsworth-Vaughn has been able to tape both male and female doctors in such a setting. On the basis of these interviews, she demonstrates that not just the doctor (as suggested in the previous literature) but patients as well wield considerable influence by actively employing verbal strategies to construct different types of power in medical discourse.