Weihua Wu
Profile
Biography
Weihua Wu is a PhD student in foreign languages and literature in the University of Science and Technology Beijing (USTB) currently visiting the Department of Sociology. Her professional interest is in conversation analysis, especially in medical interactions.
The research she is currently working on is titled “The Co-construction of Doctorability in Doctor-patient Interactions: A Conversation Analytic Approach”. Here is a brief outline of her project:
When patients visit a doctor, they are expected to justify their decision to seek medical care and establish their doctorability, namely, the legitimacy of their visit. This study adopts a dynamic, phase-sensitive approach to examine how doctorability unfolds across different phases of the consultation. It further investigates how doctorability moves along a continuum of interactional states, from being fully established to partially established or overtly questioned. Finally, it examines how doctors assess, respond to, or challenge patients’ claims to doctorability.
