Larsen2013

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Larsen2013
BibType ARTICLE
Key Larsen2013
Author(s) Tine Larsen
Title Dispatching emergency assistance: callers' claims of entitlement and call takers' decisions
Editor(s)
Tag(s) EMCA, Emergency Calls
Publisher
Year 2013
Language
City
Month
Journal Research on Language and Social Interaction
Volume 46
Number 3
Pages 205–230
URL Link
DOI 10.1080/08351813.2013.810401
ISBN
Organization
Institution
School
Type
Edition
Series
Howpublished
Book title
Chapter

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Abstract

Staff who take calls at the emergency centers in Denmark have to decide whether, on hearing what the caller first says, to (a) immediately start asking dispatch-relevant questions (for example, the caller's address) or (b) first check whether the reported incident is actually an emergency at all. The call takers' choice not only conveys different signals to the caller with regard to whether or not assistance will be granted but also has consequences for the emergency centers' response times. In this study, I focus on cases where callers present their reason for calling by means of an overt request, without providing any information about the incident. I show that what the call takers base their initial decision on is the claim of entitlement that the callers encode into their request. The downside of this staff practice is that subsequent questioning may, in fact, reveal the decision to be inaccurate and the dispatch of assistance to have been either prematurely initiated or unduly delayed. I explicate the mechanisms involved, how the calls play out, and what the implications might be.

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