Conversations with an Alzheimer's Patient: An Interactional Sociolinguistic Study

197 Pages·1994·5.27 MB·English

by  Heidi Ehernberger Hamilton

Alzheimer's disease is a degenerative brain disease which has major
social consequences for the individuals affected and for those who are
emotionally and/or physically close to them. The role which language
plays in such relationships stands at the center of this book. In contrast
to traditional analyses carried out by psycholinguists, neurologists, and
speech pathologists, with speech samples elicited in clinical settings,
Heidi Ehernberger Hamilton examines language in the life of one elderly
female Alzheimer's patient, from an interactional sociolinguistic perspec-
tive. The language of open-ended, naturally occurring conversations
between the patient and the author, over four-and-one-half years, is
investigated not only in an attempt to understand how the patient's
communicative abilities and disabilities are related to each other and
how they change over time, but, importantly, how they are influenced by
both preemptive and reactive communicative behaviors on the part of
the patient's healthy interlocutor. This "personal and particular" study
of conversations with one Alzheimer's patient is offered as a humanistic
approach to language loss. It is one in which communicative breakdowns
are analyzed not separately from details about the patient, her conver-
sational partners, and the setting, nor from relevant social facts which
may influence interactions, that is, one in which language disability is
seen as a human problem within multiple linguistic and social contexts.

Conversations with an Alzheimer's patient

Conversations with an
Alzheimer's patient
An interactional sociolinguistic study
Heidi Ehernberger Hamilton
Department of Linguistics, Georgetown University
CAMBRIDGE
UNIVERSITY PRESS
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, Sao Paulo
Cambridge University Press
The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 2RU, UK
Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York
www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521421010
© Cambridge University Press 1994
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without
the written permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 1994
This digitally printed first paperback version 2005
A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data
Hamilton, Heidi Ehernberger.
Conversations with an Alzheimer's patient: an interactional
sociolinguistic study / Heidi Ehernberger Hamilton.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN 0 521 42101 2 (hardback)
1. Alzheimer's disease - Patients - Language - Case studies.
2. Language attrition - Case studies. 3. Sociolinguistics - Case
Studies. I. Title.
RC523.H35 1994
618.97'6831-dc20 93-1373 CIP
ISBN-13 978-0-521-42101-0 hardback
ISBN-10 0-521-42101-2 hardback
ISBN-13 978-0-521 -02318-4 paperback
ISBN-10 0-521-02318-1 paperback
for Dan
who challenges me to balance
intellect with creativity and care

Contents
Acknowledgments page xi
1 Introduction 1
2 Communicative profile of Elsie 37
3 Questions 78
4 Responses 108
5 Conclusions and implications 148
References 173
Index 183