Analyzing communication competence in medical consultations

One approach to understanding and illuminating communicative processes in t he medical consultation is to directly analyze discourse features within th e interview. The model advanced here examines sequential properties of talk in the medical consultation to identify competent patterns of communicatio n. Competence is observed in terms of participants' abilities to align thei r utterances in the service of meeting both self and other goals. In this a rticle, the Coordination and Competence System (CACS; Gillotti, Thompson, & McNeilis, in press) and its conceptual foundation of communication compete nce will be explained along with results of its application to sample inter actions. Finally, conclusions about communication competence in medical con sultations will be discussed in terms of important results and directions f or future research.