Interlocutor discourse practices in response to the word finding problems of an Alzheimer’s patient

Abstract

The main goal of this paper is a conversation analytic examination of the formal practices employed by naïve interlocutors in response to AD sufferers’ word finding difficulties. However, the paper also moves beyond the confines of CA to a discussion of the interactional goals that might motivate the different practices. Specifically, the practices are related to potentially conflicting goals of face maintenance and conversational-coherence. The range of practices employed by interlocutors were found to implement a small set of conversational actions in response to the patient's turn containing the word finding difficulty. Furthermore, it was found that the response to the word finding difficulty and the response to the turn containing the word finding difficulty constitute different levels of action. In other words, interlocutors engage simultaneously with the propositional content of the patient's turn and with the word finding difficulty. Moreover, the interaction at the propositional level takes precedence over the negotiation of the word finding difficulty. Contra Hamilton (1988), it was also found that face maintenance and conversational coherence are not competing interactive goals, since regardless of the extent to which an action is oriented to coherence, face issues still drive the actual practice used.