One of the means through which the professional knowledge of the doctors is conveyed is the use of the medical jargon, which also serves the purpose of negotiating the doctors’ epistemic authority. This contribution takes into account a corpus of interactions between Italian doctors and foreign patents. The communicative strategies of the doctors and the patients, particularly in regard of the treatment of technical terms, will be analysed through the methodologies of conversation analysis.
Keywords: Linguaggio tecnico, analisi della conversazione, sociolinguistica interazionale, sapere professionale, autorità del medico, comunicazione medicopaziente