Communication, Medicine and Ethics (COMET): a valuable interdisciplinary conference
PhD student Louise Rolland presents at COMET 2016
Written by PhD student Louise Rolland.
I am researching bilingual clients’ language practices in psychotherapy for my PhD in Applied Linguistics at Birkbeck and recently presented at the 14th Communication, Medicine and Ethics conference (COMET 2016). This interdisciplinary conference was hosted by the Danish Institute of Humanities and Medicine (DIHM), which is headed by Professor Srikant Sarangi at Aalborg University.
Scholars from various disciplines offered different perspectives on communication-related aspects of healthcare. The three-day programme featured a wide range of methodologies and topics: from corpus linguistics on NHS patient feedback to discourse analysis of genetic counsellors’ feedback sessions, via frame semantics on womens’ experiences of obsessive-compulsive disorder. Keynote speakers gave thought-provoking presentations on central issues in the field such as shared decision-making in healthcare.
I was particularly drawn to presentations which featured contact between different languages and cultures, such as ‘A pedagogical framework to address moral emotions in culturally diverse clinical teams’, ‘Consulting room interactions in psychiatric care in Akan-speaking communities’ and ‘The role of language and culture in assessing the health literacy of multi-ethnic populations’. These studies all highlighted the need for healthcare providers to consider different linguistic and cultural profiles within their teams and the patient population – medical vs. lay cultures, different national or ethnic cultures, first generation vs. second generation immigrants – to foster effective communication.
This chimed with the findings of my own research, which I presented on a poster entitled ‘Language choices in psychotherapy and counselling: How are they perceived by patients and do they impact on the therapeutic relationship?’ The data were drawn from 109 bilinguals who completed an internet survey about language practices in their therapy. Many reported code-switching in therapy and it appears that they were significantly more likely to do so when they knew that their therapist was bilingual, even when they did not share both languages. This suggests that therapists’ language attitudes have an impact on how interactions with bilinguals take place. The dedicated poster session was a great opportunity to discuss my work and reflect on its implications with other participants.
Overall this conference opened up my eyes to the breadth of real-world problems linguistic analysis can be applied to. I liked that the atmosphere was professional but relaxed, with attendees keen to learn from one another. After meeting and exchanging ideas with so many people, I certainly have a long list of references for further reading and topics for future research. Another feature of COMET 2016 was the free one-day masterclass generously offered by Prof. Sarangi on Engaging Qualitatively with Healthcare Discourse Data. He gave an expert overview of concepts, themes and analytic traditions, and facilitated a practical session in which we analysed transcripts. This was invaluable and I strongly encourage others to take advantage of such opportunities!
I would like to thank the COMET 2016 Local Organising Committee for providing such a great research experience as well as the Department of Applied Linguistics and Communication and the School of Social Sciences, History and Philosophy Postgraduate Support Fund (Birkbeck) for their financial support in attending.
Louise Rolland