http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1793/80885 Tue, 14 Apr 2026 19:32:40 GMT 2026-04-14T19:32:40Z http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1793/79298 ‘‘Occasional’ Drinking: Some uses of a non-standard temporal metric in primary care assessment of alcohol use' Halkowski, Timothy In this article we focused on two fundamentally different ways that patients’ alcohol usage is described or formulated. Generally doctors work to elicit a standardized rate of use metric (e.g., ‘six drinks per week’). But there is a fundamentally different metric that patients can invoke: a non-standard temporal metric of use, such as ‘occasional’ drinking. Invoking this metric is a method whereby patients obviate a physicians’ otherwise standard push to elicit a rate of use. Doctors and patients regularly contrast invocations of ‘occasional’ drinking with regularized, rate of use formulations of drinking, and treat the former as obviating the need to elicit or offer the latter. This analysis of the detailed interactional methods used by patients to claim to be ‘occasional’ consumers of alcohol advances lines of inquiry in several domains, to wit: the morality of cognition; the data collection practices of institutions; and the broad sweep of quantification in history. Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1793/79298 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1793/79295 Accomplishing a request without making one: a single-case analysis of a primary care visit Halkowski, Timothy Physicians and other care-givers need to recognize the various and often subtle ways that patients make initiatives, such as requesting medical interventions, in medical encounters. Prior research on patients' requests and physicians' responses has limited real-world relevance because it treats `requesting' and `responding' as straightforward, discretely codable categories. In this study, we use conversation analysis to investigate how a primary care patient delicately hints that an HIV test is warranted and how her physician recognizes (and responds to) her implicit request for this diagnostic test. Our findings provide an empirically grounded and detailed account of some of the subtle interactional dynamics involved in making and responding to medical requests. By documenting the diversity of patients' and physicians' practices, we will gain a more comprehensive understanding of patients' initiatives, physicians' responsiveness, and patient-centered behavior. Mon, 01 Jan 2001 00:00:00 GMT http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1793/79295 2001-01-01T00:00:00Z http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1793/79294 Conversation Analysis and Ethnomethodology: the Centrality of Interaction Halkowski, Timothy The paper summarizes the theoretical and methodological principles of Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis, two approaches which focus on the understanding of social action as it is produced by participants themselves. Particularly, the authors discuss the strengths and potentials of the two approaches in highlighting features of the communication between patients and health providers. The attention to the temporal and the collaborative character of talk is discussed as unique to Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis and considered as powerful way to understand how participants organize their actions and activities in the consultation. Finally the authors hint to the implications of the conversation analytic study of healthcare interactions for medical practice. Fri, 01 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1793/79294 2010-01-01T00:00:00Z http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1793/79293 Toward an interdisciplinary field: Language and social interaction research at the University of California, Santa Barbara Halkowski, Timothy Language and social interaction (LSI) has now come of age as a research strand within Communication. This chapter is about a graduate program in LSI whose home is in a sociology department. We begin with a few notes about this situation, before tracing the evolution of LSI scholarship at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Fri, 01 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1793/79293 2010-01-01T00:00:00Z