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ERIC Number: EJ1273575
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2020-Oct
Pages: 22
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0142-6001
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: N/A
Police Call-Takers' First Substantive Question Projects the Outcome of the Call
Kent, Alexandra; Antaki, Charles
Applied Linguistics, v41 n5 p640-661 Oct 2020
Police call-takers need to gather as much data as is needed, as quickly as possible, to determine whether and what action should be taken. On analysing 514 calls to a UK centre handling emergency (999) and non-emergency (101) calls, we find that the call-taker's first substantive question already carries a diagnosis of the merits of the caller's case, and an implication of the call's likely outcome. Such questions come principally in four formats. On a gradient of increasing scepticism, these are requests for the caller's location (which are treated as indicating that police action will be taken); open-ended requests for further information (treated as neutral); and queries of the relevance of the incident or legitimacy of the caller, and reformulations of the caller's reason for calling (both projecting upcoming refusal of police action). We discuss the implications of this gradient for understanding how the call-takers manage their institutional goals. Data are in British English.
Oxford University Press. Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, UK. Tel: +44-1865-353907; Fax: +44-1865-353485; e-mail: jnls.cust.serv@oxfordjournals.org; Web site: http://applij.oxfordjournals.org/
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: United Kingdom
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A