Linguistic analysis of verbal and non-verbal communication in the operating room

Authors

Alison R. Moore, University of WollongongFollow
John Cartmill, Macquarie University and Nepean HospitalFollow
David G. Butt, Macquarie UniversityFollow
Jodie Ellis-Clarke, Nepean Hospital

RIS ID

34183

Publication Details

Moore, A. R., Butt, D. G., Ellis-Clarke, J. & Cartmill, J. 2010, 'Linguistic analysis of verbal and non-verbal communication in the operating room', ANZ Journal of Surgery, vol. 80, no. 12, pp. 925-929.

Abstract

Surgery can be a triumph of co-operation, the procedure evolving as a result of joint action between multiple participants. The communication that mediates the joint action of surgery is conveyed by verbal but particularly by non-verbal signals. Competing priorities superimposed by surgical learning must also be negotiated within this context and this paper draws on techniques of systemic functional linguistics to observe and analyse the flow of information during such a phase of surgery.