AIDS Counselling: Institutional Interaction and Clinical Practice (Studies in Interactional Sociolinguistics)

Conversations between AIDS counselors and their clients bring delicate and potentially threatening issues into play. In this study Anssi Peräkylä applies the principles of conversation analysis to his exploration of AIDS counseling, using data from video-recorded counseling sessions in a London teaching hospital, and analyzes the design and placement of questions in these situations. His conclusions provide a timely and illuminating insight into the management of a sensitive topic through various techniques of indirectness.