Title: Credibility in court
First published: 1996
Description: Conversations between AIDS counsellors and their client bring delicate and potentially threatening issues into play. In this study Anssi Perakyla applies the principles of conversation analysis to his exploration of AIDS counselling, using data from video-recorded counselling sessions in a London teaching hospital.

He meticulously analyzes these data to show how various questioning techniques - in this case arising from the Milan School Family Systems theory - operate in these situations, and how counsellors attempt through the design and placement of their questions to achieve the cooperation of their clients, with varying success. His conclusions provide a timely and illuminating insight into the management of a sensitive topic through various techniques of indirectness.
Subjects: Anthropological linguistics, Discourse analysis, Sociolinguistics, Trials, Camorra, History
Places: Italy, Naples
Time periods: 20th century
LC classification: HV6453.I8 J33 1996