Cromdal2012a

Cromdal2012a
BibType	ARTICLE
Key	Cromdal2012a
Author(s)	Jakob Cromdal, Håkan Landqvist, Daniel Persson-Thunqvist, Karin Osvaldsson
Title	Finding out what's happened: Two procedures for opening emergency calls
Editor(s)
Tag(s)	EMCA, Conversation Analysis, Ethnomethodology, Emergency Calls, Helplines, Institutional interaction, Service calls, Work, Talk-in-interaction
Publisher
Year	2012
Language
City
Month
Journal	Discourse Studies
Volume	14
Number	4
Pages	371-397
URL	Link
DOI	10.1177/1461445612439960
ISBN
Organization
Institution
School
Type
Edition
Series
Howpublished
Book title
Chapter

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Abstract

This article examines two corpora of telephone calls to the Swedish emergency services SOS-Alarm. The focus of analysis is on the procedural consequentiality of the routine opening by the operator. In the first corpus, the summons are answered by identification of the service via the emergency number. In the second corpus, the protocol has been altered, such that the opening entails the emergency number combined with a standard query concerning the nature of the incident. Through sequential and categorial analysis of the two collections, we highlight the distinct trajectories of action ensuing from the two opening protocols. The stand-alone emergency number opening typically results in callers asking for a specific service. In contrast, opening turns that end with a direct query about the incident tend to solicit brief descriptions of the trouble. We discuss the benefits of the latter procedure in terms of topical progression and institutional relevance, proposing that the work of emergency assistance agencies worldwide might consider implementing opening routines with a similar design.

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