Whalen1990

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Whalen1990
BibType ARTICLE
Key Whalen1990
Author(s) Marilyn R. Whalen, Don H. Zimmerman
Title Describing trouble: practical epistemology in citizen calls to the police
Editor(s)
Tag(s) EMCA, Basic resources, Institutional conversation analysis, Police, Trouble, Practical epistemology, Emergency calls
Publisher Cambridge University Press
Year 1990
Language
City
Month
Journal Language in Society
Volume 19
Number 4
Pages 465–492
URL Link
DOI 10.1017/S0047404500014779
ISBN
Organization
Institution
School
Type
Edition
Series
Howpublished
Book title
Chapter

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Abstract

In this article, we examine the way citizens' descriptions of troublesome occurrences in reports to emergency dispatch personnel are vulnerable to suspicion and doubt. The vulnerability of description in these cases involves callers' categorization of, visual or aural access to, and involvement in the reported “trouble.” It is through displays of what we term practical epistemology – displays of how one has come to know about a particular event – that these vulnerabilites emerge and are tested and negotiated in the request for and dispatch of emergency assistance.

Notes