”Hvordan har du sovet i nat, Per?”: En samtaleanalytisk undersøgelse af navne i hjemmeplejesamtaler

Abstract

When names occur in utterances, they can function as selecting a new speaker in conversations. But
what happens when names occur in two-party conversations where using names for selecting a new
speaker then seems irrelevant?
This paper investigates the use of names in a conversation from the Danish homecare system. The
conversation is between an elderly male citizen and his caretaker. There were several occurrences
of the citizen’s name in the conversation, and these form the basis for the analysis. Using a
collection based analysis a hypothesis was developed for the name-phenomenon to see if there was
a pattern.
One line of research suggests that names in this position serve a special purpose like the one found
to hold true in this paper, where others say that the position of the name in the end of utterances
make it an object for deletion which may question its role. The paper concludes that the following
tendency is present in the data under question: The name occurs primarily turn finally in utterances
that start a new sequence and which furthermore contain something problematic, especially
concerning something intimate and integrity threatening according to the citizen where reestablishment
of a mutual relation is attempted. This paper thus contributes to the understanding of
the use of names in two-party conversations in line with the former view, and disagrees with the
latter.