Backchannels used by Chinese doctors in online medical consultation

Abstract It is widely believed that the employment of backchannels in conversations contributes to discourse organization as well as positive social management. Despite a multitude of previous research focusing on the role of backchannels in diverse task-oriented discourses, few studies probed into the usage of backchannels during online medical consultation. As such, with the help of both quantitative and qualitative approaches, this study endeavors to explore the role of backchannels through analyzing the forms and functions of backchannels employed by Chinese doctors in online medical consultation. The analysis showed that doctors’ backchannels can be classified into two types: lexical backchannels and non-lexical backchannels. Functionally, backchannels are predominantly used to follow e-patient’s utterances, respond to e-patient’s questions, express unexpected agreement, and introduce empathic moves. To some extent, this paper does not only shed new light on the felicitous use of backchannels for doctors both online and offline in Chinese medical consultation scenarios but also provides insights into rapport management by doctors during Chinese online medical consultation.