Dementia and Language: The Lived Experience in Interaction (Studies in Interactional Sociolinguistics)

Bringing together cutting-edge research from a group of international scholars, this innovative volume examines how people with dementia interact with others in a variety of social contexts, ranging from everyday conversation to clinical settings. Drawing on methods from conversation analysis, it sheds light on how people with dementia accomplish relevant goals in interaction, as well as how changes in an individual's discursive abilities may affect how conversationalists negotiate a world in common and continue to build their social relationships. By exploring interaction, this book breaks new ground in challenging the commonplace assumptions about what constitutes typical or atypical interactions in communication involving people with dementia, and further demonstrates the unique and creative strategies all speakers employ to facilitate better and more collaborative communication. It is essential reading for academic researchers and advanced students across sociolinguistics, interactional linguistics and conversational analysis, as well as health care practitioners.

Peter Muntigl is Adjunct Professor at the Faculty of Education, Simon Fraser University, Canada. His recent publications include Interaction in Psychotherapy (2023, CUP).

Charlotta Plejert is Senior Associate Professor at the Department of Biomedical and Clinical Sciences, Linköping University, Sweden. Notable publications include Multilingual Interaction and Dementia (Plejert, Lindholm & Schrauf, 2017, Multilingual Matters).

Danielle Jones is Associate Professor at the Centre for Applied Dementia Studies, University of Bradford, UK. She is a medical sociologist with 20 years' experience of using Conversation Analysis to explore communication between people living with dementia, their families, and medical professionals.