Feedback and common ground in conversational storytelling involving people with Alzheimer’s disease
Issue: Vol 4 No. 2 (2013)
Journal: Journal of Interactional Research in Communication Disorders
Subject Areas: Linguistics
Abstract:
The present article focuses on feedback in storytelling involving people with Alzheimer’s disease (AD), and how feedback is related to the ways participants establish a common ground (Clark 1996) in interaction. The establishment of common ground is important in all kinds of interaction and becomes an especially intricate process if participants have AD, since the achievement of common ground requires the ability to draw from knowledge and experiences relating to past as well as present events; an ability that is often hampered by the disease. Analyses show that other aspects than the actual content of the conversation are important for the participants – for instance being together, supporting the positive identities both presented in the story and embodied in the socially rewarding activity that they manage to engage in, implying that the participants create and sustain a common ground not so much about the story-layer as of the storytelling activity.
Author: Lars-Christer Hydén, Charlotta Plejert, Christina Samuelsson, Linda Örulv
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