Focusing on task-oriented talk as a way of exploring the interaction between people with early-onset dementia and their carers

Abstract

This paper explores some talk generated by a five-minute task given to a small number of people with early-stage dementia, and their partners. Using primarily conversation analysis, and attending specifically to occasioned talk the paper discusses a number of extracts of talk, demonstrating the practices used to bring off the given task through that talk. In a discussion of the key methodological features of the paper the authors examine the conversational methods used to undertake this task and conclude that whether a conversation involving a person with dementia and their carer is naturally occurring or ‘got up’ by carers/medical personnel or researchers it always has the potential to be used as having diagnostic significance. Key analytic features of the paper are the devices used in the distribution of interactional rights in a setting where occasioned talk has been requested. The analysis, we hope, acts as an opening gambit for thinking about the potential role of communication strategies in maintaining well-being in the context of early onset dementia.

Key words:

• carers
• conversation analysis
• interactional rights
• membership
• occasioned talk
• people with early-stage dementia
• task-oriented talk
• well-being and communication