“Do I understand you right then?”: (re)formulations of users’ initial problem descriptions in social services’ online chat
(2022) In Qualitative Social Work- Abstract
- In anonymous online text-based counselling provided by social services, counsellors face specific communicative and professional challenges. Among other things, they need to ensure that they have understood the chat users correctly in order to provide relevant information and advice. The paper studies how counsellors check their understanding of users’ situations by using formulations, namely, summarising and rephrasing users’ initial problem descriptions. The data consists of chat logs from 56 web-based counselling sessions provided by social services in Sweden. Conversational analysis is used to examine the functions of chat counsellors’ formulations. Analyses show that counsellors reformulate users’ initial requests to establish a joint... (More)
- In anonymous online text-based counselling provided by social services, counsellors face specific communicative and professional challenges. Among other things, they need to ensure that they have understood the chat users correctly in order to provide relevant information and advice. The paper studies how counsellors check their understanding of users’ situations by using formulations, namely, summarising and rephrasing users’ initial problem descriptions. The data consists of chat logs from 56 web-based counselling sessions provided by social services in Sweden. Conversational analysis is used to examine the functions of chat counsellors’ formulations. Analyses show that counsellors reformulate users’ initial requests to establish a joint understanding of the users’ situations and help requested. Three distinct functions of the initial formulations are identified: recasting requests in the institutional terms of social services, clarifying ambiguity in the user’s initial posts and affiliating with the user. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/d3a6e126-02c9-4f04-b3d9-beafa95dcde5
- author
- Thell, Nataliya LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2022-09-12
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- Social service, online counselling, conversation analysis, chat, formulation
- in
- Qualitative Social Work
- publisher
- SAGE Publications
- external identifiers
-
- scopus:85138349684
- ISSN
- 1473-3250
- DOI
- 10.1177/14733250221124208
- project
- Social guidance on the Internet: professional challenges, strategies and practices
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- d3a6e126-02c9-4f04-b3d9-beafa95dcde5
- date added to LUP
- 2022-09-13 12:34:27
- date last changed
- 2022-11-28 04:04:06
@article{d3a6e126-02c9-4f04-b3d9-beafa95dcde5,
abstract = {{In anonymous online text-based counselling provided by social services, counsellors face specific communicative and professional challenges. Among other things, they need to ensure that they have understood the chat users correctly in order to provide relevant information and advice. The paper studies how counsellors check their understanding of users’ situations by using formulations, namely, summarising and rephrasing users’ initial problem descriptions. The data consists of chat logs from 56 web-based counselling sessions provided by social services in Sweden. Conversational analysis is used to examine the functions of chat counsellors’ formulations. Analyses show that counsellors reformulate users’ initial requests to establish a joint understanding of the users’ situations and help requested. Three distinct functions of the initial formulations are identified: recasting requests in the institutional terms of social services, clarifying ambiguity in the user’s initial posts and affiliating with the user.}},
author = {{Thell, Nataliya}},
issn = {{1473-3250}},
keywords = {{Social service; online counselling; conversation analysis; chat; formulation}},
language = {{eng}},
month = {{09}},
publisher = {{SAGE Publications}},
series = {{Qualitative Social Work}},
title = {{“Do I understand you right then?”: (re)formulations of users’ initial problem descriptions in social services’ online chat}},
url = {{https://lup.lub.lu.se/search/files/125607499/Thell_2022_QSW.pdf}},
doi = {{10.1177/14733250221124208}},
year = {{2022}},
}