Conversational Structure at Nursing Care Home for Elderly : Conversation Analysis of Self and Other in Daily Life Care

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to analyze conversation between care worker and elderly person in nursing care home for elderly, and to find features of interactional procedure in it. Especially, I focused on "offer" that was addressed from care worker to elderly person. Then, I used conversation analytic perspectives and Goffman's examination of "face work" to describe it. In order to describe it, I videotaped in nursing care home for elderly and made a corpus. As a result, careworker's utterances of "offer" to elderly that is placed as a pre-doing care was characteristic forms of talk-in-interaction in nursing care home for elderly. And, "request" constituted a proposal of other-obligation and be accepted/rejected by recipient, whereas "offer" constituted a proposal of self-obligation and be accepted/rejected by recipient. These features caused "dilemma settings" between care worker and elderly person.