Combining Conversation Analysis and Nexus Analysis to explore hospital practices.

This talk reports findings from a study exploring interactions between nurses and patients in a Danish hospital. The aim of the study is to describe how mobile work phones participate in interactions, and for this purpose a data corpus consisting of approximately 140 hours of video recordings, ethnographic observations, interviews, photos and documents were obtained. Inspired by the analytical manoeuvre of zooming in and zooming out proposed by Nicolini (Nicolini, 2009; Nicolini, 2013) the present study uses Conversations Analysis (Sacks, Schegloff, & Jefferson, 1974) and Embodied Interaction Analysis (Streeck, Goodwin, & LeBaron, 2011) to zoom in on the situated accomplishment of interactions between nurses, patients and mobile work phones, and Nexus Analysis (Scollon & Scollon, 2004) to connect the situated actions with the historical, cultural and political currents circulating the moment of interaction. In the conducted interviews nurses report mobile work phones to disturb interactions with patients when they ring, however, analysing the recorded interactions with tools from Conversations Analysis and Embodied Interaction Analysis displays how nurses demonstrate sophisticated awareness and delicate timing as they handle the phone call without compromising the on-going interaction. Using Nexus Analysis to map the semiotic cycles circulating moments of interaction allows the present analysis to extend the boundaries of the situated interaction and address the multiple dimensions and complex interrelationships influencing it. The present study thus showcases how Conversation Analysis and Nexus Analysis can be combined to achieve a multi-layered perspective on interactions between nurses, patients and mobile work phones.