Applying Systemic Functional Linguistics to Conversations with Dementia: The Linguistic Construction of Relationships between Participants

Müller, Nicole; Mok, Zaneta

doi:10.1055/s-0031-1301159

Cited by 18 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…Casual conversation, importantly, draws on the communicative strengths of people with dementia, namely their motivation to communicate. Given that humans are from birth attuned to the processes of socialisation, it seems safe to assume that the drive for social communication and the relevant skills required are deeply entrenched and remain intact at least in the earlier stages of the dementia (Mu¨ller & Mok, 2012). Given facilitative contexts, casual conversation can be a meaningful activity for residents with dementia, creating pleasure and enjoyment, building a sense of connection and belonging, while allowing the individual to retain autonomy and identity (Hubbard et al, 2003;Phinney, Chaudhury, & O'Connor, 2007).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Staging casual conversations for people with dementia

Mok

Müller

2013

Dementia

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Social isolation is a key concern for individuals with dementia in long-term care. A possible solution is to promote social interaction between residents. A first step toward facilitating positive relationships between residents with dementia is to understand the mechanisms behind their interactions with each other, and also how their relationships with each other are built through such interactions. Drawing on casual conversations between residents in a special care unit for dementia, this paper uses systemic functional linguistics to examine how people with dementia use language to enact and construct their role-relations with each other. Results suggest people with dementia are able and willing conversationalists. However, factors such as the extent of communication breakdown and compatibility of the interlocutors may influence whether positive relations develop or not. Casual conversation is suggested to be a promising activity to encourage positive interpersonal processes between individuals with dementia in residential care.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…he was holding an umbrella). Nonetheless, in spite of such problems with content production, aspects of language for socio-relational functions such as creating and maintaining rapport and alignment have been shown to remain intact (Davis & Bernstein, 2005;Guendouzi & Mu¨ller, 2005;Mu¨ller & Mok, 2012).…”

Section: Dementia Interactional Discourse and Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

Staging casual conversations for people with dementia

Mok

Müller

2013

Dementia

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“…For example, in spite of significant cognitive challenges and in some cases advanced dementia, skills are evident in turn‐taking (Hamilton , Mikesell ), routine sequences (Kitzinger and Jones ), enactment (Kindell et al . ), attempts at repair (Müller and Guendouzi ), attempts to make sense of other speakers (Müller and Mok , ), the use of laughter to display competency (Lindholm , Wilson et al . ) and the use of formulaic language (Davis and Maclagan , Hamilton , Wray ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Everyday conversation in dementia: a review of the literature to inform research and practice

Kindell

Keady

Sage

et al. 2016

International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders

119

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BackgroundThere has been increasing interest in dementia care in recent years, including how practitioners, service providers and society in general can help individuals to live well with the condition. An important aspect to this is provision of advice to ensure conversation partners effectively support the person with dementia in conversation.AimsTo provide a descriptive review of the literature examining everyday conversation in dementia in order to inform practice and research.Methods & ProceduresThis review used a method specifically developed for reviewing conversation analytic and related literature. A range of databases were searched using key words and explicitly described inclusion criteria leading to a final corpus of 50 titles. Using this qualitative methodology, each paper was examined and data extracted. The contribution of each of these is described and the implications for practice and research are outlined.Main ContributionThis review examined studies into conversation in Alzheimer’s disease, vascular dementia and Lewy body dementia, grouping these into: early influential studies; work drawing on positioning theory; studies using social and linguistic approaches; collaborative storytelling; formulaic language; studies specifically using conversation analysis; and conversation as a target for individualized therapy. In addition, more recent work examining primary progressive aphasia and behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia was explored. Overall, this review indicates that research examining conversation in natural settings provides a rich source of data to explore not just the challenges within conversation for those taking part, but also the skills retained by the person with dementia. An important aspect of this understanding is the notion that these skills relate not only to information exchange but also aspects of social interaction. The role of others in scaffolding the conversation abilities of the person with dementia and the potential of this for developing interventions are discussed.Conclusions & ImplicationsThe review indicates that interventions targeting conversation in dementia are often advocated in the literature but currently such approaches remain to be systematically evaluated. In addition, many of the important insights arising from these studies have yet to inform multidisciplinary dementia care practice.

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“…, Hersh et al. , Müller and Mok ). For the sake of conciseness and easier understanding, we removed all special characters from the original transcript that are not relevant for the current analysis.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 97%

The effects of enactment on communicative competence in aphasic casual conversation: a functional linguistic perspective

Groenewold

Armstrong

2018

Intl J Lang & Comm Disor

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BackgroundPrevious research has shown that speakers with aphasia rely on enactment more often than non‐brain‐damaged language users. Several studies have been conducted to explain this observed increase, demonstrating that spoken language containing enactment is easier to produce and is more engaging to the conversation partner. This paper describes the effects of the occurrence of enactment in casual conversation involving individuals with aphasia on its level of conversational assertiveness.AimsTo evaluate whether and to what extent the occurrence of enactment in speech of individuals with aphasia contributes to its conversational assertiveness.Methods & ProceduresConversations between a speaker with aphasia and his wife (drawn from AphasiaBank) were analysed in several steps. First, the transcripts were divided into moves, and all moves were coded according to the systemic functional linguistics (SFL) framework. Next, all moves were labelled in terms of their level of conversational assertiveness, as defined in the previous literature. Finally, all enactments were identified and their level of conversational assertiveness was compared with that of non‐enactments.Outcomes & ResultsThroughout their conversations, the non‐brain‐damaged speaker was more assertive than the speaker with aphasia. However, the speaker with aphasia produced more enactments than the non‐brain‐damaged speaker. The moves of the speaker with aphasia containing enactment were more assertive than those without enactment.Conclusions & ImplicationsThe use of enactment in the conversations under study positively affected the level of conversational assertiveness of the speaker with aphasia, a competence that is important for speakers with aphasia because it contributes to their floor time, chances to be heard seriously and degree of control over the conversation topic.

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Applying Systemic Functional Linguistics to Conversations with Dementia: The Linguistic Construction of Relationships between Participants

Cited by 18 publications

References 4 publications

Staging casual conversations for people with dementia

Staging casual conversations for people with dementia

Everyday conversation in dementia: a review of the literature to inform research and practice

The effects of enactment on communicative competence in aphasic casual conversation: a functional linguistic perspective

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