Sprachliche Akkommodation in onkologischen Therapieplanungsgesprächen

Abstract

Abstract Accommdation is ubiquitous in interaction. Depending on the situation, accommodation can be successful or it can fail, either intentionally or unintentionally, leading to under-accommodation, over-accommodation or contra-accommodation. Accommodation plays a vital role in interactional settings, especially in doctor-patient-communication, because accommodation is closely linked to the management of understanding, establishment of shared knowledge and building of trust. It is this interactional work of mutual adaption that this article is about. Using examples from a corpus of oncology consultations between doctors and patients in various oncology departments of a hospital, it is shown how doctors and patients accommodate both in a sequentially and temporally structured way or – only rarely – counter-, over- or underaccommodate.