Integrating the Participants’ Perspective in the Study of Language and Communication Disorders

Towards a New Analytical Approach

Charlotte Marie Bisgaard Klemmensen

• Publisher: Palgrave Pivot
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9783319786339
• eBook ISBN:
  9783319786346
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

This book presents a new analytical approach that will advance the establishment of a new discourse within the study of language and communication disorders. Instances of recurring aphasia and acquired brain injury are discussed in an empirical observation study through a theoretical lens that combines Integrational Linguistics, ethnomethodology, Conversation Analysis and practice theory. In doing so, this interdisciplinary analysis adds a person-centered perspective to existing ethnographic approaches. It addresses a significant gap in our understanding of the social/communicative/interactional consequences of brain injury for everyday life by focusing on the practical problems that individuals with communication difficulties and acquired brain damage - and their care-takers, family and friends - have to solve in everyday life, and how they solve them. This innovative work will appeal to health and social care practitioners and care-givers, in addition to scholars of health communication, cognitive, psycho- and sociolinguistics.

© The Author(s) 2018

Charlotte Marie Bisgaard KlemmensenIntegrating the Participants’ Perspective in the Study of Language and Communication Disordershttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78634-6_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction

Charlotte Marie Bisgaard Klemmensen¹  

(1)

Department of Communication and Psychology, Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark

 

 

Charlotte Marie Bisgaard Klemmensen

Email: [email protected]

Abstract

The chapter introduces the aim and topic of this book. Instances of recurring aphasia and acquired brain injury are discussed in an empirical observation study through a theoretical lens that combines integrational linguistics, ethnomethodology and conversation analysis, and practice theory. The integrational linguistic concept of integrational proficiency is foregrounded throughout this book by Harris (Integrationist notes and papers 2006–2008, Bright Pen, Gamlingay, 2009, p. 71). This study adds a person-centered perspective to existing ethnographic approaches. Thus, person-centeredness in an interaction analysis is discussed and applied in a way which invites scholars, professionals, and impaired individuals and their peers to refocus their perception of aphasia and acquired brain injury.

Keywords

InterdisciplinarityAnalytical person-centerednessAtypical communicationIntegrationismPractice studiesRevisit language disorders

End Abstract

This book proposes and discusses a novel analytical approach which contributes to the establishment of a new discourse in the study of communicational difficulties, traditionally known as the study of language disorders. The approach draws on the radical development into inquiry on language formulated by the late Oxford professor emeritus Roy Harris, who termed his approach integrationism (Harris 1996, 1998). In his book The Language Myth (1981), Harris initiated his program of demythologizing traditional Western assumptions about language and communication. In its pure form, Harris and fellow integrationists claim that integrationism has far-reaching implications for social, political, legal, philosophical, and psychological issues (www.​integrationists.​com). At best, over the past 40 years, integrationism has proved capable of defending the orthodox legacy of its own demythologizing practice. Consequently, not much interchange with the rest of the scientific community has taken place. This book aims to open this abandoned dialogue. The suggested new analytical approach frames an interdisciplinary perspective which combines basic assumptions of integrational linguistics (IL) with descriptive elements from the ethnomethodology and conversation analysis program (EMCA). These are joined in a framework on the grounds of the research agenda of practice theory (PT). As a result, an integrational practice perspective is conceptualized. This innovative approach allows new analytical insights to be gained. This book offers a fresh theoretical and methodological resource for further investigation of the social, relational, and communicational sides of linguistic impairment and aphasia following acquired brain injury (ABI).

This book’s integrational stance contributes to the study of language and communication and adds an ontological fine-tuning to traditional interaction studies in aphasia. In an integrational practice perspective, social, relational, and communicational issues are considered to be present all the time, integrating a person’s contextualization of real-life communication situations, including whenever impairment or ABI may emerge. Thus, this approach favors a new person-centeredness in interaction. As a consequence, the analysis focuses on the impaired individual’s contextualization rather than on the social scene in isolation, which is richly covered by EMCA-approaches to interaction in ABI and aphasia.

The advances of this book lie in framing the new integrational practice perspective as an interdisciplinary perspective and in suggesting an implementation of it in the sub-areas of applied integrationism and health communication. Furthermore, it informs developers of quality of life (QOL) assessments with empirical insights into living with ABI and aphasia. Finally, it is a step towards offering a formative evaluation tool in health and social care. This book’s idea of a new participant perspective distinctly affords an empirically based understanding of the individual, experiential side of ABI and aphasia.

Data are analyzed by switching lenses and by zooming in and out (Nicolini 2009). Zooming in, recorded moments of individuals in action in situated practices, is approached with analyses of the interaction. Zooming out, the discursive trajectories circulating the actual sites of engagements, is included analytically. These stem from elsewhere but serve as circumferences related to the close analysis and the actual site of engagement: the concepts of historical body and a broader societal discursive framing are, thus, embedded in the fine-tuned analysis of empirical data. This is done to closely explore a participant’s perspective on the indeterminacies which generally define social practices. In the final chapter, the ground for the new proposed analytical perspective is discussed and recommendations are proposed.

Crucially, individuals with language and communication disorders are hindered in their display of meaning-making, even in co-construction of meaning with therapists and peers. The main conclusion of this contribution is that the effort to communicate is essentially the main challenge to an individual with a language or communication disorder. Notwithstanding this, indeterminacy is a present element in communication, even in deficit communication, if such can be said to exist outside a normative paradigm. Integrationism problematizes any linguistic assumptions or methods predicated on ‘norms’ or ‘typicality’/‘atypicality’ of linguistic communication. Hence, from an integrational linguistic practice perspective, this book introduces a demythologized view on how all communication is communicative as it unfolds. This view accounts for a participants’ perspective. In everyday life, participants display emotion, enter into arguments, and claim their unfulfilled wishes even when production is their main challenge. Apparently inert participants produce categories of competing discourses in interaction not because of their language and communication disorders or because of a lack of understanding the categories applied by peers. Cognitively, this would be highly devaluing of individuals. Empirically, it is demonstrated that persons seemingly engage in efforts far beyond their apparent abilities. This may point to the fact that to communicate matters to them regardless of the burden it is to perform it. Therefore, this monograph can be said to offer a new contribution to the field as it speaks against the frequently applied concepts of theory of mind and atypical interaction in the study of language and communication disorders (LCDs). As this book suggests, taking a practice stance on discourse in communication is part of the process of conveying this new analytical approach. The book does not intend to provide a completely unfolded version of this view, nor a complete description of the implications of such a view. Therefore, it will not propose a model for a new analytical perspective but modestly draw the outline explaining the background for it. The aim of this study is, however, important for several reasons. It shows the possibility of integrating a participant’s perspective in the study of language and communication disorders by changing the presuppositions of language and communication common to the field from clinical approaches to ethnomethodological ones. By implementing an integrational linguistic practice perspective, the very concepts of language and communication are sought to be demythologized at a philosophical level. This implementation also adds to a new agenda in practice studies. Rather, this book’s implementation of a new perspective demonstrates that the individuals communicating are engaged in this world in complex ways. On this ground, language and communication (disorders) should be revisited as phenomena at a final stage of the communication and practice turns.

Furthermore, this book contributes to improved peer understanding of the integrational proficiency (Harris 2009, p. 71) of individuals with communication deficiencies such as linguistic and cognitive impairments (Nielsen 2011, 2015). Organizational intervention (Nielsen 2015; Simmons-Mackie and Damico 2008; Wilkinson 2011) should draw more closely on the experienced understandings of the people communicating. This book also aids policy development and evaluation. Finally, QOL-assessment of the psychosocial consequences of ABI and aphasia should follow the standards of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability And Health (the ICF model) (WHO 2001, 2013). Importantly, local contexts should be taken into consideration with expert advice from researchers who can help align local context with the ICF-model.

References

1. Harris, R. (1981). The language myth. London: Duckworth.
2. Harris, R. (1996). Signs, language and communication. London: Routledge.
3. Harris, R. (1998). Introduction to integrational linguistics. Oxford: Pergamon.
4. Harris, R. (2009). Integrationist notes and papers 2006–2008. Gamlingay: Bright Pen.
5. Nicolini, D. (2009). Zooming in and out: Studying practices by switching theoretical lenses and trailing connections. Organization Studies, 30(12), 1391–1418.Crossref
6. Nielsen, C. (2011). Towards applied integrationism: Integrating autism in teaching and coaching sessions. Language Sciences, 33(4), 593–602.Crossref
7. Nielsen, C. (2015). Senhjerneskade i et forståelsesperspektiv. In S. Frimann, M. Sørensen, & H. Wentzer (Eds.), Sammenhænge i sundhedskommunikation (pp. 247–281). Aalborg: Aalborg Universitetsforlag.
8. Simmons-Mackie, N., & Damico, J. (2008). Exposed and embedded corrections in aphasia therapy: Issues of voice and identity. International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders, 43(1), 5–17.Crossref
9. Wilkinson, R. (2011). Changing interactional behavior: Using conversation analysis in intervention programmes for aphasic conversation. In C. Antaki (Ed.), Applied conversation analysis: Intervention and change in institutional talk (pp. 32–53). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Crossref
10. World Health Organization. (2001). The international classification of functioning, disability and health (ICF). Geneva: WHO.
11. World Health Organization. (2013). How to use the ICF: A practical manual for using the international classification of functioning, disability and health (ICF, 2013 ed.). Geneva: WHO.

© The Author(s) 2018

Charlotte Marie Bisgaard KlemmensenIntegrating the Participants’ Perspective in the Study of Language and Communication Disordershttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78634-6_2

Begin Abstract

2. Language and Communication—The Contexualized and “Person-Centered” Nature of Linguistic and Communicative Action

Charlotte Marie Bisgaard Klemmensen¹

(1)

Department of Communication and Psychology, Aalborg U...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Language and Communication—The Contexualized and “Person-Centered” Nature of Linguistic and Communicative Action
• 3. Language and Communication Disorders as an Area of Study
• 4. Meaning—Towards a Person-Centered Approach
• 5. Introduction to the Preliminary Framework of a New Analytical Perspective
• 6. Probing the New Analytical Perspective
• 7. Conclusion
• Back Matter