From the inside out and the outside in: The sociolinguist as ethnographer

Abstract

As sociolinguists our ‘paradigmatic backpack’ carries traditions informed by ethnography, anthropology, sociology and linguistics and, for the majority, we hold no clinical training or qualifications. So what then gives a researcher from an Anglophone tradition warrant to enter a hospital site in Hong Kong and what are the mechanisms at play that help us to research with and be heard by insiders? In this session, I trace the narrative of my emic experiences of conducting video-based research over the past decade in a healthcare context where I am neither a disciplinary content specialist nor a linguistic insider. In doing so, I will illustrate how the healthcare communication researcher immersed in the context they are studying must not only be acutely aware of the paradigmatic boundary-crossing inherent in our work but also the strategies one may adopt when moving in the fuzzy, generative zone between paradigms. I will draw on illustrative examples from the conduct of several awarded HKSAR General Research Fund (GRF) studies in clinical communication and healthcare education as well as my experience in supervising clinicians undertaking postgraduate research using video-based analyses, to consider how our field can best support and encourage emerging interdisciplinary scholars.