Paper short abstract:

This paper looks at the communication between a doctor, underaged patients and their parents in a paediatrician’s practice in a superdiverse Berlin district. I am investigating how specific symptom categories from the ICD10 are communicated between doctor and patients in different languages and dialects.

Paper long abstract:

In the German Health System nine medical preventive examinations (Untersuchung 1- 9/U1-U9) are recommended and demanded by the German Government for children from birth until the age of six. These check-ups, that are meant to test and examine the physiological, cognitive and psychological status of the child, are conducted by paediatricians. The detection of social, emotional and behavioural problems is especially part of the U8 (age 46-48 months). For the diagnosis of such problems the ICD10 is the standard code, the vague classification of ICD10 f94 (Disorders of social functioning with onset specific to childhood and adolescence) is here used to express a number of 'disorders'.

This paper discusses how in a paediatricians practice in Berlin Kreuzberg, a multi-ethnic, -multi-religious and multi-linguistic district, the ICD10f94 code is understood by the paediatrician, and then filled with meaning, re-interpreted and reified in the communication with his patients and especially their parents. The paper describes how within the course of a consultation the communication changes between different languages (German, Turkish, English) and dialects (standard German, Berlin dialect) and with which words and descriptions the rather complex diagnostics is expressed and negotiated.