Communicating information packages in institutional face-to-face consultations

Abstract

Drawing on Dutch mortgage orientation consultations, the present study uncovers how mortgage advisors communicate information packages to laypersons. These information packages are jointly constructed by advisors and customers as a distinct activity within a professional advisory setting. We name this activity ‘explicative telling’. Through a systematic analysis of 57 of such explicative tellings we will demonstrate that this explicative telling activity consists of (1) doing preliminary work; (2) a body in which (a) general, official information about a specific mortgage topic is given and (b) information is applied to the customer’s situation; and (3) (pre-)closing sequences. Essential to the explicative telling activity is the recipient orientation of mortgage information, and also the advisors’ display of accountability for providing eligible information. This is supported by the irreversibility of the preliminary phase and by the presence of news deliverer upshot formulations during the body of the telling.